SWAPNA HALDER AND ABHINAV KUMAR
The Dream of Twilight
This collaborative project explores the intricate relationship between photography and nature. Surveying the circumambient locale of Santiniketan as a metaphysical, otherworldly habitat, the authors explore the nightscape as a force inducing mystical transformations of the known into a surreal ecology, interwoven with invisible forces and supernatural beings. Here, day and night dissolve into one another creating a poetic dissonance, a manifested reality in which the human is both observer and observed. The deeply personal sensorium of experiences presented here is realised as an accordion book that collapses and expands the place through its inner realms. In this world, light reveals an unfolding metamorphosis and an eternal illusion.
Swapna Halder is a multi-disciplinary visual artist from West Bengal who focuses on themes of self and identity. She graduated with a BFA from The Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship in 2021 and an MFA from Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, in 2023. Her work examines the challenges and resilience experienced through urban and rural encounters, influenced by her journey and the stories of those around her. Halder’s artistic practice spans the mediums of painting, film, photography, stop-motion animation, poetry, and performance art.
Abhinav Kumar is a multi-disciplinary visual artist from Bihar. He graduated with a BFA from the College of Arts and Crafts, University of Lucknow in 2021 and an MFA from Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, in 2023. His work reflects the influence of nature’s elements and concepts. Kumar works across several mediums, including sculpture, photography and drawings. On behalf of the Alkazi Foundation, we would like to thank Swapna Halder and Abhinav Kumar along with all the participants for their submissions, dedicated time and commitment, and look forward to receiving further proposals to our future grants.
JURY REFLECTIONS
“Swapna Halder + Abhinav Kumar present a project that locates flora ecology within the built environment of West Bengal’s Santiniketan. In Rabindranath Tagore’s original envisioning, this was to be a utopian space and alternative school. My great uncle Syed Mujtaba Ali taught at Shantiniketan before the 1947 partition and I was reminded of his short essays about that experience while reviewing the proposal. At a time of the return of linguistic and religious tensions in South Asia, revisiting the Santiniketan dream can be a tentatively hopeful journey.”
– Naeem Mohaiemen (Head of Photography Concentration, Columbia University, New York)
“Swapna Halder and Abhinav Kumar’s proposal for the 2024 Alkazi Photobook Grant offers a hallucinogenic lens onto Santiniketan’s landscape. What I find compelling in their proposal is how it subverts the traditional portrayal of Santiniketan as the idyllic backdrop against which the dawn of 20th century modern art of the subcontinent took place. ‘The Dream of Twilight’ captures portraits of trees, foliage, roots, water bodies, sky, the moon and earth by night, as they take centre-stage, creature-like, glaring back or caught in the headlights. The book carries a playful irreverence towards the photographic image, to painting and to bookmaking. What is left to be seen is whether the project will catch the glimmers of lived experiences, stories and historical violence that marks this landscape.”
– Sabih Ahmed (Director, Ishara Art Foundation)