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Profile
Shadow Lines: The Politics and Poetics of Belonging in Assam and the Moving Image
My practice-based research seeks to uncover ways of reimagined belongings of the Bengali Muslim community in Assam (India), outside the lens of the paper documentary evidence. Given the community’s history of violence, disenfranchisement and precarious forms of life tied to ethno-linguistic/communal fissures, rapid ecological shifts and volatile climate, through my research I examine the ‘spectacular image’ that is produced of the community, in both still and moving images. In my practice-based research I propose that we need to find new kinds of non-fiction image-making practices, not just in Assam, but in places that witness violence and climate catastrophes to allow for new forms of theoretical engagements and creative practices.
Research
Research Interests:
- Practice as Research
- Non-fiction film practices
- Ethnographic methods
- Statelessness
- Borderlands
- Citizenship
- Belonging
- Riverine Islands
- North-East India
Publications
Books
Curating the City: The Urban Lens Film Festival (chapter) in the updated “Anthology of Asian Cinema” – Debashree Mukherjee, Intan Paramaditha, Sangjoon Lee and Zhen Zhang (eds.), ( Routledge, 2024).
Articles
In Search of a Reimagined Belonging, Wire.in, 2025
NRC in Assam goes much beyond Hindu-Muslim binary; ignores state's complicated history , FirstPost, 2018.
Thirty-Two Years Later, the Nellie Massacre Remains All But Forgotten, Caravan, 2015
Memory and Forgetting in Nellie, LiveMint, 2015
Films
2023 - FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES a multi-format project on history and citizenship in Assam. Supported by India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) and Shergill Sundaram Arts Foundation (SSAF).
2023 - BORDERLINES an archival project on South Asian Feminist Histories of the Indian subcontinent. Supported by The Third Eye/Nirantar
2019 – SIKHIRI MWSANAI (Dance of the Butterfly) documentary film on the disappearing song and dance tradition in Bodoland, Assam. Supported by Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT)
2015 - WHAT THE FIELDS REMEMBER – documentary film on citizenship, violence and memory through the Nellie massacres in Assam. Supported by Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT).
2012 - THIS OR THAT PARTICULAR PERSON – documentary film on official identity documents in India. Supported by Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT).
2010 - BRAVE NEW MEDIUM - documentary film on Internet Censorship in south-east Asia. Supported by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada