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Dhrubajit Sarma
Bamboo Blossoms II, 2019
Charcoal, photo transfer on wood and carving
©Dhrubajit Sarma
The series Bamboo Blossoms attempts to revisit the site of Assam, through its socio-political and geographical past and present, through the perspectives of minority communities in Assam. For decades, Assam...
The series Bamboo Blossoms attempts to revisit the site of Assam, through its socio-political and geographical past and present, through the perspectives of minority communities in Assam. For decades, Assam has been a highly politically and environmentally turbulent area, where communities have been subject to social and political negligence. Through this project, Dhrubajit attempts to revisit my home state and re-look at the landscape from the perspective of these politically disenfranchised victims who have lost their land, homes, and ultimately, hope. The Miya Muslim communities, for example, have been living in constant fear and hopelessness as their existence and livelihoods gets constantly challenged by the ecological/ environmental crises like floods and soil erosion every year. The National Registry of Citizens (NRC) has come as the latest blow to vulnerable communities, lakhs of whom have been now declared illegal immigrants. This project revisits the landscape of Assam through the eyes of the minority communities whose labor has largely contributed towards building and nurturing of the land through agriculture, infrastructure, housing—their crop fields, roads, and homes—as their very basis for existence is relentlessly challenged by populist, ethnocentric view.