August 18, 2020: A girl, standing before the barren structure of her tea shop, which is ruined by seawater in Namkhana Island, Sundarbans, India. India and Bangladesh share the southern part of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta, the Sundarbans. The main source of income here is valuable forest resources. But global warming is looming large. One major reason for this environmental crisis is deforestation by the poor, illiterate locals for domestic and commercial use. It has made the land weak and susceptible to water attacks in the form of devastating floods, intense storms, and torrential rainfall. Every year there is approx. 3.14 mm rise in sea levels leading to soil erosion, degradation of soil quality, and reduced crop yield, immediately resulting in food and drinking water crisis. Moreover, water has already devoured parts of Mousuni and Ghoramara Island. And in the near future, a large portion of Sundarbans is expected to go underwater.
Supratim Bhattacharjee’s work is based on long-term in-depth visual storytelling over environmental social and humanitarian issues. His long-term project “Sinking Sundarbans (2013 – Ongoing)” is widely accepted and helped to open the eyes of many global climate activists. In this project, he has been depicting how the world’s biggest mangrove region is under the biggest threat of climate change. His other project, ” The curse of coal” is also widely accepted which he started in 2014 and it is still ongoing. It’s a long-term project over fossil fuel extraction and its deadly impact on the environment. This environmental and humanitarian project got selected for the “UNICEF photo of the year”, 2020. His works are also displayed in the Climate Adaptation Summit 2021, The Netherlands. His works have been acknowledged and appreciated globally and regularly published in major international publications. His environmental and humanitarian projects are powerful enough to create an impact over the policymakers to take steps for the sake of humanity. Moving forward, he has plans to represent the gruesome realities of human life of the South Asian Countries with utmost honesty, maintaining the dignity of the human race.
[ PORTRAITS ] A single photograph of a person or group of people that increases the understanding and appreciation of the subject(s). Selfies or self-portraits are acceptable. Each participant is allowed to enter up to 10 images. The images must be taken in 2019 or 2020.
Judges for Portraits
