Dr. Paula Sengupta, born in 1967, is an artist-pedagogue, curator and art writer. She is Professor and currently Head of the Department of Graphics-Printmaking and Dean of the Faculty of Visual Arts,
Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. Trained as a printmaker, her repertoire includes broadsheets, art books, objects, installations, moving images and community art projects. Her work addresses gender binaries, enforced migration, loss of home, heritage and landscape and a concern for conservation of societies, communities and ecologies. Her language is distinctly feminine, therefore laying claim to methods and materials that underline feminist thought.
The story of Exile is the story of survival, not just of bodies, but of identities and ideas. In this exhibition, the Tibetan diaspora is not merely chronicled – it is lived, seen, and felt through the juxtaposition of visual fragments and the resounding echo of memo It begins with the Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet in 1959, an act that sparked a mass migration of over 1,30,000 Tibetans, who carried not just belongings but the weight of an imperilled culture. Paula Sengupta’s installations weave the fabric of this displacement into layered, tactile works. Complementing these works are Sujoy Das’s photographs, a visceral counterpoint that grounds the narrative in stark reality. The interplay of Sengupta’s installations and Das’s photographs invites the viewer to traverse the precarious edge between belonging and loss. Through images, objects, and stories, the exhibition asks us to witness the Tibetan experience and the universal struggle to hold onto what makes us who we are.
