LOOKING AT Sarker Protick

In this guided tour, Marlène Harles, an expert on contemporary art production in Bangladesh, and exhibition curator Katharina Täschner shed light on the work of Bangladeshi photographer Sarker Protick from a media anthropological and photo-historical perspective.

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.

Marlène Harles offers exciting insights into the artistic practice and the environment in which Protick works and which he himself helps to shape. These include the Patshala South Asian Media Institute, where Protick studied and now works as Director of International Program, and Chobi Mela, Asia's oldest photography festival, which he co-curates. Through Protick's work, the tour shows how a new generation of internationally active artists is reflecting on the history of Bangladesh and making its relevance visible beyond the borders of Asia.

Marlène Harles is an art and media anthropologist. She completed her doctorate at the Cluster of Excellence Asia and Europe in a Global Context at Heidelberg University on artist collectives in Nepal and Bangladesh. She deals with topics of visuality, intersectionality and the collective. She has been at Kunsthalle Mainz since 2022, where she co-curated the exhibition Unextractable: Sammy Baloji invites.