Press release

After Nature Prize 24

Bangladeshi photographer Sarker Protick spans a range of temporalities in his exhibition অঙ্গার . Awngar. Protick reveals the connection between the history of colonization across the Indian subcontinent and the ongoing exploitation of the individuals and ecosystems of this region by exploring the historic region of Bengal, which includes Bangladesh and parts of present-day India.

In this, his photographic investigation resembles field research. Like many of his works, অঙ্গার . Awngar is a long-term project. The focus is the nineteenth-century establishment of a train network and the coal mining under the colonial domination of the British Empire.

For Awngar, Protick embarked on journeys to sites in India and Bangladesh including Narayankuri, West Bengal, where one of India’s oldest mines is located, and Hardinge Bridge, a 1.6 kilometer long railway bridge in Bangladesh. This hallmark project was constructed between 1910 and 1915, stretching across the Padma River. Even today, it is an essential part of the railway infrastructure and thus plays a significant role in transporting workers and export goods. At the same time, this infrastructure evokes the brutal history of the Partition of Bengal.