Sarker Protick
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.
Protick’s photographs show the dystopic coalfields hulled in debris and dust clouds, disused dead-end railroad lines, and ruins and relics of late capitalism that recollect once-flourishing industries. His meticulously composed, minimalist compositions sensitize the eye for spaces and landscapes emptied of human presence. He works primarily with natural light sources, creating delicate pastel tones that evoke a poetic, seemingly timeless atmosphere. When depicting other subjects such as the imposing Hardinge Bride, he makes use of an abstract black-and-white graphic aesthetic.
Seemingly effortlessly, Protick succeeds in uniting apparent contradictions, such as the loss of resources and livelihoods in capitalism’s constant hunt for growth. In Bengali, অঙ্গার (Awngar) not only denotes coal as a material, but also references the material as a constant in the Earth’s depths, which glows from within and can smolder eternally beneath the surface. In this, the term symbolizes the colonial history of the British Empire as well as the capitalist structures reinforced today by privatized construction companies and large corporations. The artist’s precise and atmospheric visual language presents the global, geopolitical, and historical dimensions of imperialism and its effect on the climate crisis.
With অঙ্গার . Awngar, C/O Berlin shows Sarker Protick’s first monographic exhibition in Germany. The double exhibition of the two prizewinners Laura Huertas Millán and Sarker Protick is curated by Katharina Täschner, Junior Curator at C/O Berlin. An accompanying publication will be published by Hartmann Books.
The After Nature . Ulrike Crespo Photography Prize is a joint project of the C/O Berlin Foundation and the Crespo Foundation. Every year, the prize enables the realization of two research-intensive projects and honors artists or groups over the age of 35 who explore new concepts of nature in photography and visual media through their work. The prize carries a cash award of 40,000 euros for each winner as well as an exhibition at C/O Berlin with an accompanying publication. The exhibitions then travel to the Open Space of the Crespo Foundation in Frankfurt am Main.
Sarker Protick (b. 1986, Bangladesh) is a photographer, lecturer, and curator. He studied at South Asian Media Institute – Pathshala in Dhaka and is currently director of their international program. He is also co-curator of the Chobi Mela Festival, the longest-running photography festival in Asia. His works often thematize the transience of time and focus on Bangladesh and the historic region of Bengal. His work has frequently been shown in international exhibitions as well as winning several fellowships and prizes. Protick was a Foam Talent and received a Magnum Foundation grant. He lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
