As the year draws to a close, the Deutsche Börse-shortlisted artist shares her highlights and experiences
Artist, photographer, and activist Pouloumi Basu has been advocating for women’s rights through her art for over a decade. Raised in Kolkata, India, Basu has produced work ranging from guerilla armies to divided Alaskan families, exhibiting in Paris Photo 2020, Rencontres Arles 2020, and many more shows across the globe.
Basu’s Centralia — a docu-fiction charting central India’s conflicts over land and resources — won PH Museum’s Main Grant in 2018, as well as this year’s National Geographic Explorer prize. It is now in the running for the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.
Following a year of widespread recognition, here, Basu looks back on her experiences, and shares her highlights of the year.
If I had to pick five words to describe the year, they would be; Art, depression, anxiety, courage, and home.
I spent most of my time working from my studio at home. I went to the forest everyday with my three rescue dogs to unwind.
My favourite magazine cover was Michaela Coel for New York Magazine.
A song got me through 2020 has to be Wildfires by SAULT. In fact, the whole album Black Is was a go-to.
A book that kept me going is probably The Body keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
The best exhibition I saw was Zanele Muholi in Tate Modern, and I regret missing Cao Fei Blueprints in Serpentine Galleries.
A photograph that encapsulates 2020 for me would be this image below, by Dylan Thomas Healy Hausthor.
One lesson I learned: Mental illness is a real disability.
Creativity will carry me forward to 2021. I’ll Try to leave behind negativity.
poulomibasu.com
