Arijit Bhattacharyya, born in West Bengal (1994, India) is an artist currently living and working in Weimar (Germany). Through his artworks, he deals with questions about identity, power and history and how these manifest in social contexts. He is deeply invested in the conversations of postcolonial identity, decoloniality, social marginalization and social disobedience. His practice stirs up prevalent structures that determine the way we live, drawing resistance against different kinds of injustice and oppression. Starting with painting and drawing at a young age, his work extends now from performances, installations, socially engaged projects, lecture-performances and design interventions. He has a unique approach to art, breaking with its traditional boundaries, with his practice being connected to everyday social practices.

 

To make social struggles of marginalized communities visible but also to have an impact on it: whether it is by transformable objects that raise political issues, lectures that question the given, musical performances that give a voice to the unheard and often by working with food, as its subject talks enormously about our way of living. To realize his ideas, he usually works in collaborations, emphasizing the collective, the experience and seeking interaction and dialogue. His works are multi-disciplinary and interactive in a way: with projections in public space, public lecture-performances, body performances, community interactions and gigantic paintings.

​

His artistic discourse is deeply rooted in the dissecting trajectories of socio-political history and its implications in cultural practices. His practice can be perceived as a stance of speaking up to power. As a curator, he is invested in artistic practices that investigate methods of social agitation. Arijit triggers us to see what we want to close our eyes to while inspiring us to re-imagine structures that define who we are.