Interview: Why an artist turns to vanishing villages, river ghosts in Assam’s eroding landscape
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In Upper Assam’s Rahmaria area in Dibrugarh district, the Brahmaputra river is central to people’s lives and imaginations. But since a massive earthquake in the region in 1950, Rahmaria has witnessed widespread river erosion, claiming several forests, paddy fields, villages, and shifting lands in its wake.
There was also rampant militarisation in the early 1990s under the influence of the United Liberation Front of Assam, creating an atmosphere of unsettling silence in Rahmaria. This is the backdrop against which visual artist and photographer Pallov Saikia sets most of his work.
Pallov, 36, works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Fine Arts and Music, Rajiv Gandhi University in Arunachal Pradesh. He is also co-founder of the Assam-based Anga Art Collective, which has emerged as an important voice from the region.
Excerpts from an interview with the artist.
When I see your work, it feels very rooted in where you grew up, and where you come from. Could you talk about your growing up years, and the factors that influenced your work?
I grew up in Garpara village in Rahmaria mouza, located in Assam’s Dibrugarh district. Our village was situated on the banks of the Brahmaputra river.
One of the main things I remember is the backdrop of constant river...