WINTERTHUR.- Reality meets imagination: In Phantasmagoria, Indian artist Poulomi Basu brings together photography, film, virtual reality and installation. Her works foreground women from the Global South, make exclusion and gender-based violence visible, and open up pathways to self-empowerment. The exhibition is both an invitation to interrogate one’s own gaze and a powerful call to resistance.

The exhibition title invokes the phantasmagorias of the 18th century, a popular form of theatre that captivated audiences with magic lantern projections and optical illusions. Basu likewise plays with the relationship between imagination and reality: she drafts speculative visions of the future that simultaneously reflect the present realities of her protagonists and highlight possibilities for self-empowerment and resistance. In her transmedial practice, Basu employs photography, film, virtual reality and installation, harnessing the potential of different media to draw attention to exclusion, structural injustices and gender-based violence.

Basu’s works call for resistance to patriarchal structures, prevailing power relations and the systemic oppression of women and girls. Threaded throughout is the resilience of her protagonists: Basu enables them to assume the role of empowered agents, to raise their own voices and tell their stories—thereby challenging the audience’s perception.

The six work groups presented in Phantasmagoria are all centred around the stories of women from the Global South and the notion of female bodies as battlegrounds for political and ideological struggles.

Born and raised in Kolkata, India, Poulomi Basu (*1983) now lives and works in London, Great Britain. She studied sociology before completing her master’s in photojournalism and documentary photography at the London College of Communication with distinction. Her work has been exhibited internationally and forms part of several public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum (GB), Harvard Art Museums (USA) and Autograph (GB). Basu has received numerous accolades, among them the New Voices Special Jury Mention at Tribeca Film Festival 2023 and a BAFTA Breakthrough UK in 2024. She premiered in the official selection at Festival de Cannes in competition and was a nominee for her immersive film installation in 2024.

Selected Works

Centralia (2010–2020)

In Centralia, Poulomi Basu casts a spotlight on a long-standing conflict between Indigenous communities and the Indian state that receives little public attention. Rich in mineral resources, Adivasi territories in central India have long been subject to attacks by state forces. In response, the communist People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) has fought to resist these expropriation efforts and defend the land rights of approximately 104 million Adivasi people. The docufiction Centralia blurs the line between reality and imagination: Basu combines documentary photographs and found images with staged scenes, thus challenging the distinction between our perceptions of this armed conflict and the reality on the ground. Basu’s artistic-activist exploration of these issues was published in book form in 2020, weaving together different voices into a multi-layered narrative that breaks with the linearity of traditional documentary storytelling.

Blood Speaks: A Ritual of Exile (2013–2018)

In Blood Speaks: A Ritual of Exile, Poulomi Basu addresses the custom of chhaupadi, which is still practiced in some parts of Nepal. During menstruation, women and girls are treated as untouchables and banished to rudimentary huts that usually lack washing facilities and menstrual products. The practice poses significant risks to physical and mental health, and in some cases leads to rape, abduction or death. Although the custom was officially banned in 2005, it has only been punishable by law since 2018 and is still being observed. What started in 2013 as a photo essay about this specific form of gender-based violence has since been developed into a virtual reality installation. Furthermore, Blood Speaks situates the topic within a broader context of reproductive justice as it explores the links between menstrual exile, child marriage and caste discrimination. Basu has also collaborated with activists and NGOs to raise funds for the construction of sanitary facilities and menstrual products, and to generate media coverage of this issue.

Sisters of the Moon (2022)

In Sisters of the Moon, Basu reflects on the effects of water and resource scarcity on women in the Global South. Her fictionalised self-portraits set in fantastical landscapes draw on magical realism and depict strong protagonists allying themselves with nature. The interweaving of ecological and feminist themes is central: the lack of clean water and sanitation facilities has a major impact on everyday life and therefore on the possibilities and opportunities of women and girls. In her own words, the artist describes the work as a dystopian vision: ‘I wanted to show what becomes of the world when women are oppressed. Without their magic, their spark, the world withers and dies.’ As with Blood Speaks: A Ritual of Exile, for Sisters of the Moon Poulomi Basu collaborated with the non-profit organisation WaterAid. The artist describes her connection to the NGO as an important coalition within her artistic-activist practice to achieve meaningful change.

Fireflies (2019–ongoing)

In the autobiographical series Fireflies, Poulomi Basu explores forms of resistance and resilience in the face of collective and intergenerational trauma. For this photography and film work, the artist turned the camera on her mother and herself. She deals with the consequences of patriarchal violence that both women experienced within their family, while also addressing their processes of healing. As the protagonist of her own story, the artist stages herself in self-portraits amid fantastical landscapes that convey a sense of freedom and autonomy. Drawing on feminist science fiction, the work takes on self-care and self-love as central themes. By making her own experience the subject, Basu expresses solidarity with all the women who have granted her insights into their lives throughout her career.

Publication

Accompanying Poulomi Basu’s first institutional solo exhibition at Fotomuseum Winterthur, the bilingual publication Phantasmagoria (German/English) offers the first comprehensive overview of the artist’s key bodies of work. Essays by scholar Breanne Fahs, cultural journalist Ann Mbuti, and author and cultural theorist Mithu Sanyal illuminate Basu’s practice from different perspectives. In a conversation with curator Bindi Vora, the artist discusses self-love as an emancipatory practice and the concept of docufiction. A glossary by Indian sociologist Moubani Maitra contextualises central terms and opens up an additional entry point to Basu’s work and thematic concerns.