Poulomi Basu

Poulomi Basu (1983, Kolkata, India) is an accomplished transmedia artist, photographer, and dedicated activist whose practice has garnered widespread recognition utilizing her art as a powerful method for social change. Her work explores the relationship between politics of bodies and systems of power. She has dedicated her life to advocating for women's rights, particularly in the Global South but impacting worldwide. Basu's work is informed by her own patriarchal upbringing in Kolkata, India, where both her mother and grandmother were child brides and young widows. 

 

Basu partnered with the charity WaterAid to create this series to launch a campaign which raised over £5 million for climate, clean water and educational initiatives in India and Nepal. Her photobook, Centralia, won the 2020 Rencontres d'Arles Discovery Award, a National Geographic Explorer 2020 Award, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Deutsche Borse Foundation Photography Prize. In 2017, her groundbreaking work, "Blood Speaks”, was selected for the Sundance New Frontiers Lab Fellowship, and in 2019, it was presented at SXSW. She is represented by TJ Boulting Gallery, London and Assembly, Houston. Victoria & Albert Museum (UK), Museum of Modern Art Library - Special Collections (USA), Harvard Art Museums (USA), Autograph ABP (UK), Martin Parr Foundation (UK), Rencontres d'Arles (France). She is the winner of Infinity Award for Contemporary Photography and New Media, International Centre of Photography Museum, USA 2023. She has an upcoming solo exhibition: Maya: The Birth of a Superhero, at the Victoria & Albert Museum.