Remembering Suranjan Basu: His Life and Art
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Date: 24 May 2025
Time: 6:00 – 7:30 PM
Venue: KCC Library
As a closing programme of the ongoing exhibition The Art of Suranjan Basu (1957 – 2002), KCC in association with Seagull presents a discussion on Suranjan Basu’s life and work, how integral and unavoidable politics was to him, and his role in The Realists – an artists’ collective that he co-founded with some of his close friends, which valued group activity and collaboration over solitary studio practice.
This discussion features artist, academic, and curator Dr Paula Sengupta, and geologist Prof Sugata Hazra – a friend of Basu and a part of The Realists group, with academic and art historian Dr Soumik Nandy Majumdar as the discussant.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Dr Paula Sengupta is an artist, academic, art writer and curator based in Kolkata. She graduated in Painting from the College of Art, New Delhi, followed by an MFA and PhD in Printmaking from Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan. She is currently Professor, Head of the Department of Graphics-Printmaking, and Dean of the Faculty of Visual Arts at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. Trained as a printmaker, Dr Sengupta’s repertoire as an artist includes broadsheets, artist’s books, objects, installation, animation, and community art projects. Her work addresses gender binaries, enforced migration, loss of home, heritage and environment, and a concern for conservation of societies, communities and ecologies.
Prof Sugata Hazra, a geologist by profession, is a Professor of Coastal Zone Management and former Director of the School of Oceanographic Studies in Jadavpur University, India. He has conducted research on the biophysical impacts of climate change on the major ecological hotspots in India – the drought-prone plateau region of West Bengal, the flood-prone Gangetic plain, the Himalayan eco-region affected by warming and hot spells, the Coralline ecosystem of the Andamans affected by repeated thermal bleaching, and the Sundarbans delta affected by cyclones and sea level rise. He has led several national and international projects on the Sundarbans and coastal oceans.
Dr Soumik Nandy Majumdar, a faculty member in the Department of History of Art at Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, has been teaching the history of Indian and East Asian art for the last 25 years. He graduated from Viswa Bharati, Santiniketan and completed his Masters from MSU, Baroda. Majumdar has published several essays in national and international journals and has written exhibition catalogues for prominent artists. Significant shows curated by him include 8 Bengal Masters: Miracles of Existence, on behalf of Akar Prakar at Musee des Arts Asiatiques de Nice, Nice, France, May 2015; Compelling Presence – Jogen Choudhury Retrospective Show at NGMA, Bengaluru; and Jogen Chowdhury Show at Kalakriti, Hyderabad in 2016.
