Poulomi Basu explains how she’s using her camera to expose a vicious cycle of abuse taking place in traditional areas of Nepal
Lottie Davies
“RED is the colour of purity and also the colour of sin.” Poulomi Basu grew up in Calcutta, in eastern India, in a traditionally patriarchal home, and much of her work springs from an anger and frustration with the roles of women that she observed as a child, and continues to study in her current work. “‘A Ritual of Exile’ is about blood, and the vicious cycle of abuse which blood creates,” she explains. “I see colour as a form of control, of abuse, for women.”
Colour has a particular cultural importance in Indian culture, where the wearing of bright colours signifies happiness and celebration, while a widow can only wear white, the colour of death and mourning. “Both my mother and grandmother were child brides and became very young widows. My grandmother never wore any colour; I always saw her wearing white until the day she died.
“I was very close to her, and I was saddened to see all of us getting dressed up and going outside and she would either not come to events, or if she did, it would be in white. It really bothered me. And then the same thing happened to my mother.” At the age of 17, when her father died, Basu made her bid for freedom, leaving the family home without her brother’s consent. “I had a very difficult childhood, I was a victim of child abuse in my family. A lot of things went wrong. And like a lot of girls experiencing a restricted upbringing, I just wanted to get the fuck out the minute I could.”
The sense of self and courage required must have been enormous given the circumstances, but Basu is not a shy and retiring woman; she is taking on the world on her own terms, with passionate ambition.
“I packed up a bag and left for Bombay. And I put myself up in a hotel for 10 days or so with a bit of money my mother gave me. I stayed in the Hotel Bengal, in Crawford Market, just because it was called Hotel Bengal and I thought that being Bengali I might not get into trouble there! And then I moved into a paying-guest room with eight other women. Bombay gave me freedom. It’s the city of dreams, the New York of India.”
Some 15 years later, via college and freelance work in Bombay, and a masters at LCC, Basu is now an artist and photographer based in London and New Delhi. She is working on numerous projects about women and young girls, employing what she calls “transmedia activism”. Hers is not simply the work of a documentary observer, but of someone who is determined to use her photography as a means to an end, to create impact in the world.
“My work concentrates on und
