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Photographer Swapan Nayak’s black and white images shed light upon the tumultuous uncertainty experienced by victims of conflict and displacement.

While on an assignment for Outlook, Nayak became aware of ‘chars’ – the temporary islands on the Brahmaputra river that are home to nearly 1.6 million migrants from Bangladesh who have been living there since the early 1950s. Every monsoon, when the river rises, the inhabitants of...
Photographer Swapan Nayak’s black and white images shed light upon the tumultuous uncertainty experienced by victims of conflict and displacement.

While on an assignment for Outlook, Nayak became aware of ‘chars’ – the temporary islands on the Brahmaputra river that are home to nearly 1.6 million migrants from Bangladesh who have been living there since the early 1950s. Every monsoon, when the river rises, the inhabitants of these ‘temporary islands’ are forced to leave their homes and move to concrete ground in the form of new villages or towns on the banks of the river. The photographer was amazed by the lack of access these people had to basic amenities and the trauma of improbability they dealt with on a daily basis and decided to document these emotions in a series of images he shot for his personal portfolio.

Nayak is also very alarmed by the constant conflict whose shadows colour daily life and experiences in the North-Eastern States of India. “Every two or three years, something really serious happens. The conflict is always on. On various fronts… But these things, these conflicts, carry on. So many people are still in refugee camps in west Tripura—tribal people forced out of Mizoram… Manipur too has had problems… This goes on. Like a flowing river. When something big happens, it becomes visible. It is then that people get to know about it”, says the artist in a conversation with with Souvik Sarkar and Bishan Samaddar, published on the Tasveer Gallery website.

Throughout his various series of photographs that describe personal and communal conflict, Nayak focuses on the plight of victims of circumstance. The deeply embedded sentiments of hurt and anxiety rise to the surface in Nayak’s compositions, magnified and communicated through his impeccable portrayal of human emotion.

Born in 1966, Swapan Nayak has participated in a number of solo and group shows in India and abroad. Amongst his most recent solo shows are ‘Nowhere People’ and ‘Refugees In Their Own Land’ at the Stainless Gallery and Tasveer Arts, New Delhi, and at Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre, Kolkata, in 2008. The most recent group show in which his photographs have been featured was ‘Click! Contemporary Photography from India’ at Vadehra Gallery, New Delhi, and Grosvenor Vadehra, London, in 2008.

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