KOCHI: On the first floor of Pepper House, Sabyasachi Bhattacharjee, a young Tripura artist now based in Baroda, is busy working, unhindered by the heat and humidity. On a piece of cloth hanging from the ceiling, he is tracing an image. Sabyasachi is doing this in 10 feet sections, the total length around 100 feet. He is looking at the marine algae phytoplankton. “The algae drifts about on the surface of the ocean, but it is also one of the most important sources of oxygen on the planet,” says Sabyasachi. Sabyasachi is equating this drift to the human drift or migration taking place all over the world.
“I am trying to compare them both. After every 10 feet, the landscape will change, just as it happens in the real world.” Sabyasachi is hoping to hold a residency show parallel to the next edition of the Kochi Muziris Biennale which commences on December 12, 2020. The young artist is on a two-month residency, since January, from the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF). On March 17, he will be leaving for Adelaide, where he will spend one month on a KBF-Adelaide Residency Exchange. This is his second visit abroad. Sabyasachi was part of an Art Asia fair at South Korea in 2018.
For this artist, Fort Kochi is a familiar place. For an earlier Kochi Muziris Biennale, he had spent two months working as an assistant to the artists. “Fort Kochi feels like home now,” he says. He comes in at 11am and works till 7pm. “This is something I love to do. I am a full-time artist now,” he says. Senior photographer K R Sunil is also a full-time artist. A featured artist at the Kochi Muziris Biennale 2016, some of his subjects include the dhow workers of Malabar and the cultural diversity of Mattanchery, and bizarre folk rituals like bharani at a temple in Kodungallur.Once Sabyasachi returns, it will be Sunil’s turn to go to Adelaide. “It is my first trip abroad,” he says. “There are some old houses in Adelaide. I might want to take photos of that,” he says. He is also planning to put together an audio-visual presentation, apart from a one-day Open Studio.