Kolkata-based documentary photographer talks about his first solo VR exhibition - mid-day.com

Updated on: 15 January,2023 08:51 AM IST &nbsp|&nbsp Mumbai
Nidhi Lodaya | nidhi.lodaya@mid-day.com

Photographer Soumya Sankar Bose’s debut solo accumulation successful the metropolis delves into the disappearance of his mother. With virtual world arsenic the medium, helium builds a clip instrumentality to effort to find retired what happened

The assemblage is compared to this “ghost” oregon the shadiness with a bird’s caput and an exaggerated beak that watches TV, making it look similar a modulation from the ending of the movie connected surface to the contiguous time

From being underwater, navigating done a maze wrong a deserted house, staring astatine a TV surface that plays unrecorded footage of past rites and a baby’s birth, to seeing a “painting of a ghost” with a bird’s caput that tells you that the coating is actually, “you…staring astatine the TV,” was an acquisition this writer has ne'er gone through.

We person conscionable finished watching Kolkata-based documentary lensman Soumya Sankar Bose’s film, A Discreet Exit done Darkness. It’s his archetypal solo accumulation successful the metropolis and is simply a virtual world (VR), non-animated diagnostic magnitude film. The 60-minute-long 360-degree offering, which tin lone beryllium seen done a VR set, is accompanied by a bid of haunting photographs. This project, his 4th one, delves into the disappearance of his parent from 1969 to 71. 

The movie is successful the signifier of diary entries from the position of his grandfather, who tells america astir their life, their location successful Midnapore successful West Bengal and the quest to find his nine-year-old girl Chahanda, who disappears portion connected an errand to bargain sweets. She returns 3 years aboriginal with nary representation of wherever she has been each that time. No different accusation astir however she came back, wherever she was before, present exists successful nationalist oregon idiosyncratic memory. Through superb usage of sound, among different things, the movie fits beautifully into the fearfulness  and thriller genre.

The hour-long VR movie volition gully you successful completely, ensuring you don’t look astatine your telephone and  is akin to a clip machine. Pic/Sameer Markande

“The communicative was ever successful my head,” says Bose. But it was lone during the pandemic, erstwhile helium was location with his family, did  he statesman moving connected it because, “otherwise it would beryllium excessively precocious arsenic galore of my household members person already passed away”. 

We conscionable him astatine Experimenter, an creation assemblage successful Colaba, wherever his accumulation volition beryllium connected presumption till February 25. “There are truthful galore layers, specified arsenic section authorities and different happenings astatine the time, that I decided to marque a movie astir the location wherever my parent grew up. It does not beryllium anymore, but stories astir it unrecorded connected done me.”

Bose’s grandfather, who was his main source, passed distant earlier his parent returned. For this project, helium imagined himself arsenic him, and went to the places helium thought his gramps whitethorn person fine-combed for his mother. 

The 32-year-old lensman confesses helium is nary journalist, but his probe has been similar one, and embellished with imaginativeness and superstitions. “I mostly beryllium connected oral history,” helium says, “I met friends, family, neighbours and tried to recognize what happened, and however the location looked. I besides went done paper archives.” 

Bose’s grandmother, who is 90 now, and his mother, who is 62, volition beryllium coming to the metropolis for the premiere. He confides however their inputs were precise important to him. 

His parent has nary recollection of those 3 years owed to prosopagnosia, the inability to recognise faces. “But you tin consciousness her trauma and consciousness she hasn’t been capable to flooded it,” helium says. “She had mixed feelings [about the film]. She wasn’t capable to talk astir the disappearance for a agelong clip without being judged. And present finally,  there’s a consciousness of alleviation arsenic she doesn’t person to support it a 
secret anymore.” 

His grandmother’s absorption was amusing: She kept asking Bose wherever helium recovered his grandfather’s diary, which features successful the film. However, it’s an amalgamation of  fiction, imaginativeness and research. “She besides thought that the narration was successful my grandfather’s voice,” helium says,  “which is absorbing due to the fact that I person ne'er heard his voice. She is besides trying to link to and look for herself successful these memories.” 

A mean 2D movie could not person done justness to Bose’s vision, because, helium says, “we needed thing that gave 2 antithetic perspectives of the aforesaid story. With 360 grade film, you are successful that abstraction for an hour, seeing the location and clip -travelling to that play and coming backmost to spot the photographs.” 

Bose’s adjacent project, his mother’s perspective, volition signifier the 2nd section of this exhibition. 

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