On Creation ● ​On Beauty & Violence ● On Connection

Shwarga Bhattacharjee is an artist based in North Philadelphia. Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Shwarga moved to the U.S. in 2014. He received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University and a BFA in drawing and painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Dhaka University. Shwarga’s work draws from the duality of experiences as an immigrant. His work references social historical and political events in the Americas and South Asia. Hakimah Abdul-Fattah interviewed Shwarga in late February 2022 as his first solo exhibition entitled Excavation Paths was wrapping up at Twelve Gates Arts in Philadelphia. The exhibition Shwarga Bhattacharjee: Excavation Paths was curated by Tausif Noor. In this episode we discuss Shwarga's creative process, chaos and beauty, the colonial history of South Asia and his friendship with Tausif.  
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About the Artist 

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​Shwarga Bhattacharjee (he/him) is an artist based in North Philadelphia. His work has been exhibited in various venues in the U.S. and Bangladesh, including Vox Populi and Temple Contemporary in Philadelphia; the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning in New York; and the Dhaka Art Summit, where he was selected as part of the nation’s Young Talent at the inaugural Summit in 2012. He is a 2021 recipient of the Peter Benoliel Fellowship at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia, and has participated in residencies at the Chatauqua School of Art, the Britto Arts Foundation in Dhaka, the Jentel Artist Residency, and the New York Artists’ Equity Curatorial Residency. Bhattacharjee curated an exhibition at the Philadelphia exhibition space Little Berlin in 2018 as a Visiting Curator and worked as a children’s book illustrator with Room to Read, a leading non-profit organization that focuses on educating underprivileged children across Asia and Africa. (www.shwarga.com) 

About the Host 

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​Hakimah Abdul-Fattah (she/hers) ​is a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a visual artist and researcher with a professional background in museums and arts organizations. She is interested broadly in the moments in which material objects are put to work in national projects of repair, specifically with respect to how they might address the historical injustices of new world slavery and colonization. Hakimah holds a BA in Anthropology and French from Bates College and a MA in Museum Anthropology from Columbia University.

Further readings 

  • Bhabha, Homi Jehangir, and Jamshed Bhabha. 1968. Homi bhabha as artist, a selection of his paintings, drawings, and sketches. Bombay: A Marg Publication.
  • Bose, Subhas Chandra. 1970. Fundamental questions of indian revolution. Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau.
  • Bose, Subhas Chandra, Sisir Kumar Bose, and Sugata Bose. 1997. The essential writings of netaji subhas chandra bose. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
  • Bose, Subhas Chandra, Sisir Kumar Bose, Sugata Bose, and Netaji Research Bureau. 1997a. An indian pilgrim : An unfinished autobiography. Oxford india paperbacks. Vol. 1. Delhi ;New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Césaire, Aimé., and Robin D. G Kelley. Discourse On Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.  
  • Fanon, Frantz, Black Skin, White Masks. 1st Evergreen ed. New York: Grove Press, 1982.  
  • Fanon, Frantz, and Richard Philcox. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 2004. 
  • Noor, Tausif. 2014. Modern and contemporary art of south asiaOxford University Press, https://go.exlibris.link/dv0CBXKm.
  • Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.  
  • Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1999. A critique of postcolonial reason : Toward a history of the vanishing present. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
  • Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, and Sarah Harasym. 1990. The post-colonial critic : Interviews, strategies, dialogues. New York: Routledge.

Sound Credits 

  • Ambient Sonata by Dee Yan-Key licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dee_Yan-Key/Ambient_Sonata/amb_son) 
  • Trinity Alps by Podington Bear licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Fathomless_-_Ambient/Trinity_Alps) 
  • Juliette by Podington Bear is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Fathomless_-_Ambient/Juliette) 
  • "Churchill's legacy still painful for Indians" BBC News Jul 21, 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Ers8gw_W4) 
  • Bell Sound Effects by Sound Jay
  • SHOVEL - Shovel digging into dry dirt (SFX) by MorneDelport freesound.org licensed under CCBYNC 3.0
  • squishing a plastic bottle by djfroyd freesound.org licensed under CCBYNC 3.0
  • Wind, Realistic, A.wav by InspectorJ freesound.org licensed under CCBYNC 3.0
  • Office paper crumple folding handling.wav by WavJunction.com freesound.org licensed under CCBYNC 3.0
  • BOTTLE CAP.wav by tsakanemashaba freesound.org licensed under CCBYNC 3.0
  • squishing a plastic bottle.m4a by djfroyd freesound.org licensed under CCBYNC 3.0
  • ambiences » busy city 04 by rucisko freesound.org licensed under CCBYNC 3.0
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