We Need To Talk in Whispers by Soumya Sankar Bose reconstructs archival materials and oral histories from long-term research and engagement with local communities into photographs, films, and alternative archives and expands on broader themes and concerns that permeate his practice. Assembled as ‘case studies’, the work resonates with a forensic impulse. The emphasis, instead of being on the scene of crime, lies on the wounds that permeate our everyday existence. Drawing upon the smattering of clues left within the diary pages, each suite of images drafts a character sketch.
We Need to Talk in Whispers brings to view that which is pervasive, and yet, remains marred by a resistance to narrating aloud. In a time where scores of individuals are plagued by mental distress, it pushes us to contend with the discomfort of fatality’s grip on the mind. It asks us to attenuate to these lower registers, which carry the weight of our psyches and interior landscapes. When we learn to listen to, and learn from, the whispers, we may hold space for those that wrestle, often alone, with untimely ends.
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