I don’t think this work is a project at all. This is more of an introspection, a peak into my archive from the university years and beyond. I feel it is more of turning pages, and finding people who have left, the promises and heartbreaks and all the moments in time and space that perhaps could have happened.
There is a certain sense of agitation. It almost feels like something intense is going to happen, but it never happens. These are images between those spaces of unformed accidents, the carpe-diem moments of the exuberance of youth.
A diary, cold of the altitude, the warmth of the people, the lights seeping through the tall pines on my trail through the forest floor and the fog cloaking the distant chaos of the city fills up my negatives.
Born in 1991, Swastik Pal is a graduate from Calcutta University, India. He is keenly interested in photography and filmmaking. He was nominated for the Joop Swart World Press Masterclass in 2015, 2017, 2018 and was also the Alexia Student Award of Excellence recipient in 2018.
He recently completed a Masters in Film Studies from Jadavpur University, Calcutta and is currently working on the last chapter of his long term trilogy in the Sundarbans, in collaboration with Newcastle University.