DPOTY 2021 - Open Category Winner
Open Category Winner Debsuddha Belonging The ongoing project ‘Belonging’ is about presenting the psychological struggle and sisterly companionship shared by my elderly, unmarried, aunts Swati Goswami and Gayatri Goswami. Already facing social isolation due to the racial discrimination they have experienced being born albino in Kolkata, India where people are obsessed with white skin obliterating the natural, brown, complexion. They have been further isolated from their own surroundings by enforced government measures against the COVID-19 pandemic which took place in 2020 and 2021 too, due to the second wave of pandemic. The sisters know better what isolation actually means but the pandemic has exponentially affected them and made their world even smaller. Since my childhood, I have been observing their life struggle. As a photographer and their nephew, whose childhood, the precious and most sensitive part of life, was surrounded and protected by them, I am collaborating with them in this project, to observe their mental health and how they sustain themselves through dreams, desire, and companionship, even at this elderly age, in their 163 year old residence in north Kolkata, India, the place where they born and brought up. The body of work intends to celebrate and commemorate their resilience through their sisterhood. debsuddha.com
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