User:Dashsupranav/sandbox

Supranav Dash
Born	1977 (age 46–47)
Nationality	Indian
Known for	photography
Style	Social Documentary, Portraiture, Fine-Art
Website	supranavdash.com

Supranav Dash (born 1977, Kolkata, India) is a India fine art photographer.He is currently based in New York City. His work examines the ideas of identity, displacement, gender, race, the caste-class struggle in the context of the contemporary Indian culture and the modern globalization initiative. Dash was mentored by Sarah H. Meister (Curator, Dept. of Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York City) and Thesis Advisor Billy Sullivan (painter/ Instructor, SVA) for his BFA. He worked with Dan Leers (Curator, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pennsylvania) for his Independent Study.

Early life

Supranav was born at Asansol in 1977 and grew up in Kolkata. He is the only son of Krishna and Manab Kumar Das. His mother is a trained classical singer who later took up Bengali Pop music as her career. His father was a banker and an amateur illustrator. Supranav grew up in an environment conducive to the arts. He learned the Sitar for 4years and the tabla for 2+ years. He finished his Advanced Diploma in Fine Arts from Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark under the tutelage of the maestro painter Ramananda Bandyopadhyay (Student of Nandalal Bose).

Career

Supranav is a 2016-17 Fellow in Photography from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). He recently exhibited at the PhotoVogue /Visions at the Italian PhotoVogue Festival, Milan; at the Photoquai Biennial (PHQ5), Musee du Quai Branly + Eiffel Tower, Paris; at the Noorderlicht Photo-Festival, Groningen and at Chobimela IX, Dhaka. He is an Eddie Adams Workshop XXVI Alumni, was selected for the Aperture Summer Open ’14 and American Photography 30. He was nominated for the 2014 PDN's 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch; and shortlisted for Critical Mass, the Lucie Foundation Scholarship Award, the Global SOFA Grant and the Kontinent Award.

Dash has won Grand prizes and places in Portraiture at KLPA, WPGA, Emerging Focus @photol.a., PX3, IPA, NYPF, NYPHA competitions and had his work group exhibited in New York City, London, Paris, Florence, Bologna, Groningen, Kuala Lumpur, Los Angeles, Colorado and Pennsylvania. His 'Marginal Trades' multimedia piece was curated by Kira Pollack (Time Inc.) for Slideluck-Photoville, showcased at AI-AP Int'l Motion Arts Award 2 and the Transizioni Festival, Bologna.

Dash's projects have received recognition/ critical appreciation and featured in numerous publications worldwide including Time Lightbox, GEO, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Wired, Huffington Post, American Photo, Fast Company-Design, Lens Culture, SDN, Photographic Museum of Humanity, GUP magazine, Ojodepez magazine, PDN Edu, DOC! magazine, aCurator, Tasveer Journal, The Morning News, PetaPixel among others.

Projects:

Marginal Trades (2011- ongoing)

Marginal Trades is an ongoing photographic project since 2011, documenting the rapidly vanishing trades, businesses and professions of India. The images are informed and inspired by the works of August Sanders, Irving Penn, Eugene Atget and by the Indian ethnographic series by Sir John F. Watson and John W. Kaye (The People of India, 1868-75). Trades and professional practices have always been intertwined with the caste system in India. Each caste and its sub-sets would stereotype an individual and dictate their occupational practice. Since the early 1800’s, people were not allowed to deviate from their fixed professions or they stand being outlawed by the society, which at the time, social morals reflected ignorance and strong attachment to orthodox beliefs. The traditions of professions and trades being passed down the line from father to son, continued for generations until recently when globalization and rapid socio-economic change resulted in the problem of enculturation and automation. At this point, many of the age-old practices faded out, while others are on their way to extinction. The modern Indian generation refuses to stick to their ancestral trades; they have become more daring and switch to the more lucrative business possibilities. The abandonment of the traditional practices also results from insufficient incomes, a desire to escape caste stereotypes, the constant neglect of the privileged classes of the society these people serve, and a government that’s not open to social reforms. Global trends are constantly changing, therefore in these frantic times, it’s very easy to forget our past, culture, and traditions. I am not opposed to modernization, but at the same time, I want things to slow down and force one’s self to recognize and remember the beauty of these analog practices. As a photographer, I’d like to use my craft to pay respect to these tradesmen and bring them to light.

Chapter I & II: Presented in Black&White and Color and on locations across Bengal and Uttar Pradesh I hire an empty space in the bazaar or rent a convenient corner for the day, set up my canvas backdrops, lighting arrangements and put two people in charge. Then I go stand at the busy street intersections looking for that particular gent or lady who matches the ideas of trade identity and visual representation of their business practices. After spotting my subject, I'll explain my project and intention to them and if they agree I bring them back into my makeshift studio for the photo session. I am always upfront in my approach to my subjects, explaining to them why this project is so important for me. Almost everyone I speak to realizes that their professional practices will never be the same in twenty years from now; however few decide to let go of their inhibitions and agree to be photographed. I speak Hindi, Bengali and bits of Urdu that facilitates my interactions with these people but the biggest challenge is to persuade them to leave their familiar surroundings. They're used to the tourists taking their snaps in the street. But the moment you want to extract them and bring them to your confined space, and put them under artificial lighting, they are afraid of being victimized. It is because the system has abused them so much, and apparently, there's not much difference in the nature of the request between a corrupted police officer and myself.

Chapter III: Comprises of Video portraits of the Tradesmen.

Chapter IV: Post-Colonial Photo Studio Alexander Supartono, Photo Historian specializing in Colonial Photography & Curator of Post-colonial Photo Studio exhibits around the world. “With his series, Marginal Trades, Supranav Dash transforms a nineteenth century ethno- photographic project into a 21st century social Research. Between 1868-1875, the British government publishes ‘The People of India’, an eight-volume ethnic survey and classification of its colonial subjects. A century and a half later, Dash systematically records the rapidly disappearing trades, businesses and professions of India, which stem from the almost five hundred types of castes, costumes and occupations’ documented in the monumental publications. What was once applauded as the most significant contribution to social science is shown by Dash as a basic social research, which emphasizes the potential of a medium that can differentiate, order, and control others and contribute to social change” -says Supartono.

New Mothers (2009-13)

Kashmiri Hindu Pandits (2013-15)

A Study in Pixels: Meditations on Light, Chance and Spirituality (2014-16)

Every ‘pixel study’ originated as a digital photographic image captured with a phone camera, either by myself or sent to me by a family member, partner or a friend. Each image illustrates a personal or important event in my/our lives. These images are then deconstructed digitally on my iPhone through Databending (Glitching) apps and uploaded to the digital cloud (Instagram), an ephemeral plane of the collective human experience. Sometimes an upward of 50 layers of glitching- filtering goes into the making of one single piece. The art comes in knowing when to stop and the final piece is born purely out of ‘chance’. My maternal grandfather Jogesh was the dearest person I had. When he passed away in December 2011, I was in NYC attending the final week of my Fall semester. Joe had two wishes- that I be present for his last breath and that his ashes be dispersed in the holy Ganges river at Varanasi after his death. My inability to fulfill Joe’s wishes had a deep emotional impact on me. I began to ponder over ideas of relationships, death, commitment, separation, alienation, isolation, and lastly the internet. The past 5 years have been tough; being away from my family, close friends, my partner, and my motherland. The only connection I had was through the internet, and digital reality became my only reality. A pixel is only a small single portion of a much larger photograph. Much like a pixel, a person is but one in a collection of 7 billion, just elements of the human race. Some of us may be storied, some forgotten; but we all ultimately contribute to a bigger picture. In our digital age we often overlook the importance of a physical experience, and we have successfully substituted it with digital intimacy. We depend on these pixels to carry our emotional and physical stimuli. These studies are abstractions of ordinary memories experienced over the internet including: images of my dying grandfather, my mother’s crying face after my graduation, a breakup, intimacy, and home videos of the traditional Durga Puja festival. All these life events, traditionally experienced in person, have been facilitated and strained because of a digital discourse. By destroying the physical nature of these photographs and reducing them back to the pixelated form in which it actually originated, I question the very notion of photography and thereby reality itself. The notion of destruction-as-creation behind these images is in part a reflection of my Hindu faith. Hindus burn their bodies after death, as they believe the body disintegrates and dissolves into the five elements of nature (Pancha Bhootam) — i.e, air, water, fire, earth and space, all of which finally unite with the source; and from which a new body will arise. These ‘pixel studies’ also take cue from the Japanese Wabi-sabi aesthetic, which centers on a notion of beauty which sees it as imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It also touches the Buddhist concept of ‘the three marks of existence’, resonating with my own personal experiences and conflicts with impermanence, suffering, emptiness and the ego. There is no resolution to the gap each of these memories have in their meaning and experience, however through faith and spiritual awareness I began to deconstruct their representations into an abstract reality that I now feel comfortable in living in.

In The Pursuit Of Happiness? (2015-ongoing)

Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has become an integral part of domestic violence disputes and divorce settlements in India. By abusing the ‘cognizable’, ‘non- compoundable’ and ‘non-bailable’ nature of this provision, thousands of false cases are registered each year by married women with malicious intent to humiliate and harass their husband and families. Fear of social shaming, loosing their jobs and unable to see their family members being traumatized has driven many husbands to take the suicide route. While others have lost many fruitful years of their life running pillar to post trying to clear their name. Until recently no helpline existed to hear their pleas of help. IPC 498A was constituted in 1983 to eradicate the Dowry menace and to protect housewives from domestic cruelty inflicted by their husband and in-laws. But it has taken a sharp 180 degree turn. Women use this provision as a tool to extract huge sums of money from their in-laws, to ease out of a divorce, to make way back to their paramour, or put pressure back when they get caught in some illicit affair. Threatening to use this law to make the husband silently endure physical and mental torture, force him reside separately from his parents, or to accept her when caught in a lie on pre- marriage illness or lack in her educational qualification are very common. In most cases the names of aged family members, married brothers and sisters, distant relatives and even names of babies are dragged in. The opportunist wife with help from the police and lawyers manipulate the unsuspecting gender-biased judicial system, resulting in the systematic demise of the said family unit. Once a shield, has now become a weapon, acknowledges the Supreme Court. It termed this provision as 'legal terrorism’. and in 2014, finally removed the automatic arrest clause from IPC498A. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, in 2015 alone, approximately 64,534 married men ended their lives. This number is twice more than that of suicide of married women. In West Bengal alone, 20868 cases of IPC 498A went on trial with a conviction rate of only 1.07%. Due to the load of false cases valuable time of courts are getting wasted, and justice is getting delayed for the real women victims of domestic abuse. The WHO, in its report on India cites IPC 498A as one of the major reasons for the "Increasing Abuse of the Elderly in India”.

Education

2013 BFA Photography (Honors), School of Visual Arts, New York, NY.

2001 Bachelor in Commerce (Accountancy), South City College, Kolkata, India.

1994 Advanced Diploma in Fine Arts (Painting), RKMIC, Kolkata, India.

Personal life

While doing his Bachelors in Accountancy from South City College, he took up photography in January 1998. His assisted City-based fashion and commercial photographer, Gautam Sengupta for 3+ years before setting up his own Studio. Between 2002-09, Dash took up fashion, portraiture and advertising jobs, and ran a successful business. It was not until mid-2007, Dash realized from his travelogues of various religious festivals/sites that he wanted to immerse in documenting the human condition. In 2009, he packed his bags and landed in New York City to pursue a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts.

AWARDS & MENTIONS

2017

• PhotoVogue/ Visions Selected, PhotoVogue Festival, Milan, Italy.
• Chobimela IX International Photo Festival, Selected. Dhaka, Bangladesh.

2016

• Fellowship in Photography, New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA)

2015

• Photoquai Biennial 5 (PHQ5) ‘We are Family,’ Selected. Musee du Quai Branly & Eiffel Tower,Paris, France.
• Noorderlicht Photo Festival ‘Making Oneself,’ Selected. Groningen, The Netherlands.

2014

• Aperture Summer Open - Juried Competition & Exhibition.
• American Photography 30 Selected.
• Photo l.a., Emerging Focus - Grand Prize Winner - Portraiture
• SVA BFA Photography Alumni (Photoville) Invitational
• "Photo World", The New York Photo Festival - Student Documentary Series Winner
• Kuala Lumpur International PhotoAwards, Finalist - Portraiture/ Finalist - 'Savage & Serene'
• 5th Annual Contemporary Photography Competition & Exhibition, PPAC - Finalist
• Visible White: Photo & Video Prize, 3rd Edition - Finalist
• B&W Spider Awards, Nominee - Portraiture
• LensCulture Exposure Awards 2013 - Finalist

2013

• PDN 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch 2014, Nominated
• AI-AP International Motion Arts Awards 2, Selected Winner - Multimedia
• APA / Lucie Foundation Scholarship Award - Shortlisted (Pro)
• Eddie Adams XXVI Barnstorm Alumni
• Critical Mass Finalist
• International Photography Awards (IPA), Third Prize Winner - Fine Art Portraiture (Non-Pro)
• International Photography Awards (IPA), Honorable Mention - Moving Images (Non-Pro)
• PX3 Prix De La Photographie, Paris, Second Prize Winner - Press category
• One Life 2013 - Finalist
• Slideluck XVII Photoville, Multimedia - Selected Winner
• Global SOFA Grant (Human rights) - Finalist
• International Kontinent Awards, Shortlisted - Fine Arts Projects
• 'Identities' - Director's Honorable mention, The Center for Fine Art Photography, CO
• New York Photo Festival 'My Story' Winner
• The 5th Kuala Lumpur International PhotoAwards, Grand Prize Winner - Portraiture
• The WPGA/ Love Awards, First Prize Winner - Portraiture
• One Eyeland Awards, Third Prize Winner - Portraiture
• London International Creative Competition, Shortlisted - Multimedia
• London International Creative Competition, Honorable Mention - Fine Art Portraiture
• The SVA Alumni Society Award, School of Visual Arts, NYC
• Mentors Program, BFA Photography Dept., School of Visual Arts, NYC

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2018

• Contemporary Unified Painters Annual, The Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata

2017

• PhotoVogue/ Visions Selected, PhotoVogue Festival, Milan, Italy.
• Chobimela IX International Photo Festival, Selected. Dhaka, Bangladesh

2015

• Photoquai Biennial 5 - ‘We are Family,’ Curated by Frank Kalero, Musee du Quai Branly & The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France.
• Noorderlicht Photo Festival - ‘Making Oneself,’ Curated by Alexander Supartono, Groningen, The Netherlands

2014

• Aperture Summer Open, Curated by Chris Boot, Aperture Foundation, NYC
• Kuala Lumpur International Photo Awards. Whitebox Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• 5th Annual CPC&E, Curated by Brian Clamp & Mary Ellen Mark, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, PA
• Transizioni Fotografia in Movimento - Multimedia, Bologna, Italy
• SVA BFA Photography Alumni Invitational, Curated by Stephen Frailey, Photoville, NYC
• "Photo World", The New York Photo Festival - Winners Exhibition. The PowerHouse Arena, NYC
• The Collective Other, Curated by Tiffany Smith & Antonio Pulgarin, SVA BFA Gallery, NYC
• Visible White: You See Me, Curated by Paul di Felice & Marinella Paderni. FSM Gallery, Florence, Italy
• LensCulture Exposure Awards - Finalists, London College of Communication, London, UK
• New York Photo Awards ( 2013 ) Finalists, The PowerHouse Arena, NYC
• Emerging Focus - Finalists, Photo l.a., Los Angeles, CA
• International Photography Awards ( Winners 2013 ), Photo l.a., Los Angeles, CA

2013

• Multimedia Slideshow ( Marginal Trades Video), Slideluck XVII Photoville, Curated by Kira Pollack, NYC
• Multimedia Slideshow ( Marginal Trades Video), AI-AP International Motion Arts Awards 2, NYC
• Identities, Curated by Barbara Tannenbaum. The Center for Fine Art Photography, CO.
• Degrees of Separation, Curated by Richard Brooks. SVA Gallery, NYC
• "My Story", The New York Photo Festival. The PowerHouse Arena, NYC
• Kuala Lumpur International Photo Awards. Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Mentors, Curated by Stephen Frailey. Visual Arts Gallery, SVA, NYC ( Mentor: Sarah Meister /Curator, Dept. of Photography, MoMA, NYC)
• Senior Thesis Show, BFA Photo Gallery, SVA, NYC
• Threads, Curated by Antonio Pulgarin. BFA Photo Gallery, SVA, NYC
• Personal Manifestos II, Curated by Antonio Pulgarin. BFA Photo Gallery, SVA, NYC
• Bob Ross Lives: Installations, Curated by Peter Garfield. BFA Photo Gallery, SVA, NYC
• This Funny Worship: Fashion Photography, Curated by Janusz Kawa. BFA Photo Gallery, SVA, NYC
• 0-K-255: The Digital B-W Show, Curated by Matt Wilson. BFA Photo Gallery, SVA, NYC

SELECT PRESS

• National Geographic | Stone. Daniel, “Why India’s Snake Charming Jobs Are Disappearing,” December 2017
• GEO France | Rombier. Jean, "Les Mille et Un Petits Metiers," June 2016
• aCurator | Grahame. Julie, "Marginal Trades," January 20, 2015
• GUP Blog | Oktober Matthews. Katherine, "An Art of Corruption," November 11, 2014
• DOC! Photo | Kosmala. Grzegorz, "Marginal Trades," Issue: #27/28, November 26, 2014
• Wired | Bierand. Doug, "Glitched Images You'd Never Think Were Photographs," August 5, 2014
• GUP #41 | Vroons. Eric, "Ode to Remembrance," #Professions, May 28, 2014
• PDN Edu | Waterman. Jill, "Inside Selection: Supranav Dash, Marginal Trades," March 12, 2014
• Time Lightbox | Thottam. Jyoti, "Disappearing Trades: Portraits of India's Obsolete Professions," August 20, 2013
• Huffington Post | Brooks. Katherine, "Photo Series Documents The 'Dying' Professions of India," August 30, 2013
• Fast Co. Design | Brooks. Margaret, "The Lost Generation: Portraits Of India's Vanishing Jobs," September 17, 2013
• American Photo Magazine | Crager. Jack, "Human Touch," Issue: Jan/ Feb 2014
• Tasveer Journal | Gaskell. Nathaniel, "Marginal Trades," September 13, 2013
• The Morning News | Rabarison. Karolle, "Everything-Wallahs," September 3, 2013

External links

• Official website