Judges
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Courtesy of Debsuddha Banerjee
Debsuddha Banerjee
Born in 1989, Debsuddha is a documentary photography practitioner from West Bengal, India. Since 2015 he has been involved with photography professionally. Debsuddha's interest revolves around social issues and human relationships. The reason behind focusing on documentary projects is to get involved with the communities and collaborators for better understanding and communication at a deeper level as a photographer and sometimes as an outsider. Debsuddha believes documentary photography can express a lot of things with more power through its visual potential.
Belonging
The body of work is about seeking the companionship, and psychological struggle of my elderly unmarried aunts, siblings of my mother, who have already been spending an isolated life socially - discriminated against due to their skin color.
They are already used to isolation, and socially, the pandemic has imposed another layer of isolation. As a photographer and their nephew, I am studying and sharing my close observations of their companionship and the psychological struggle they have been through.
Companionship is a vector to build a space that gradually grows as a place, sometimes virtually and sometimes physically, that floats through and shapes the psychology, which reflects prominently, especially during a crisis.
I am Debsuddha, whose childhood, the precious and most sensitive part of life, was surrounded and protected by them, Swati and Gayatri.