Avijit Halder

©AVIJIT HALDER

By Avijit Halder

The photograph in this work is one that I took as a 10 year old in my Kolkata home, a self-portrait with my mother in the background. It is one of the last images of her, and also of us together. I unearthed it while in my studio space in New York with my 9 month old.
Looking at an old photograph is like encountering the ghost of a memory. They represent memory, but they can also eclipse all that we remember. Here the memory involves the trauma that my mother burned to death. How do we make space for fully remembering while navigating such a memory?
 
I started by ripping pieces of my mother’s saris and placing them over the canvas in shapes that evoked fire. I printed the image at the scale of the canvas, then shredded and glued to fit around the fabric. Despite the ominous fire shape, for me, the sari mended the image of us like sutures in a wound. The glue and cement I used to adhere elements served to distort the image while strengthened the bond between the saris and the photograph, patching the grief and joy of this memory together.