Spaces of Separation by Sarker Protick

We are working with Sarker Protick to produce his first solo exhibition in the UK. The exhibition will bring together multiple bodies of work, including Spaces of Separation (2016-ongoing), a long-term study of the colonial architectural remains that can be found across Bangladesh and West Bengal. Our aim is to create an exhibition that listens to history, contemplating the ever-evolving story of Bangladesh as a place and nation. 

Working with photography, video and sound, Sarker Protick’s works are built on long-term surveys of Bangladesh. He is drawn to themes such as time passing, the alteration of land and borders, as well as traces of both personal and political histories. Protick is a lecturer at the South Asian Media Institute Pathshala, and co-curator of Chobi Mela, the longest running international photography festival in Asia. As an artist he has received multiple awards and fellowships, including Joop Swart Masterclass, Foam Talent, Light Work Residency, Magnum Foundation Fund and the World Press Photo Award. He is represented by Shrine Empire, Delhi. 

About Sarker Protick:

Sarker Protick’s work frequently build the narrative around the trope of change; momentary stillness, fleeting light, elemental origins of a place and a lost home. To make the decaying memory tangible, to define disappearing history of a place without confining it, Protick’s often minimal, suspended and atmospheric visuals are coherently open with vast and solemn distance.

Working with Photography, Video and Sound, Protick’s works are built on long-term surveys rooted in Bangladesh. The form and materiality of his works often morph into the physicality of time; its raptures and our inability to grasp or hold time, the process of image-making as the way to expand time, to make space for more subdued moments, or more hints of an embodied life. Here we don’t experience time as moving in a linear direction, rather, we experience it slowing down, recurring, having dips and curves, sometimes changing in a constant flux.

Protick studied at the South Asian Media Institute – Pathshala in Dhaka, where he is also teaching for the last ten years. Protick is a co-curator of Chobi Mela, the longest running International Photography Festival in Asia. His work has received several recognition and fellowships, including Joop Swart Masterclass, Foam Talent, Light Work Residency, Magnum Foundation Fund, World Press Photo Award etc.

Protick is represented by Shrine Empire in Delhi.

Supported by: