An exhibition of photographs by Nazes Afroz
The exhibition will open on Monday, 15 January 2018 at 6:30 pm
Millions of refugees from East Pakistan descended on Kolkata and its surrounding regions following the partition of Bengal in 1947. A large number of them refused the government plans for their relocation and decided to build their own destiny against all odds. A section of these dispossessed people forcibly squatted in the rural hinterland of fallow marshy plains and wild vegetation in the southern edge of Kolkata turning it into their ‘Desher bari’ or the homeland that they left behind.
By sourcing old photographs from albums of refugee families and taking recent corresponding photos writer and photographer Nazes Afroz inspects how these ‘refugee colony’ areas have been transformed into a modern urban sprawl in the last two decades.
"Memory" is the central theme of this project. Thus Nazes has delved into the reminiscences of the locals and collected objects that the refugees carried with them while being displaced. These stories along with the old and recent images construct a journey that the refugees were forced to undertake seven decades ago.
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