Assembly presents Centralia by Poulomi Basu, an award-winning series of photographs that exposes hidden crimes of war as an indigenous people fight for their survival. In war, truth is the first casualty; this work explores the unsteady relationship between reality and fiction and how our perceptions of truth are manipulated. Centralia has been called a hallucinatory reflection where an invisible conflict between a guerilla army, an indigenous people and the Indian state reveals wider issues of environmental degradation. Such exploitation comes at a price: the transmogrification of violence into the de-facto language of politics. Basu is an internationally-exhibited Indian transmedia artist and activist, a National Geographic Explorer, Sundance Fellow, Magnum Fellow, winner of Arles Discovery Award 2020, and nominee for the Deutsche Börse Prize 2021. A portion of proceeds from the sale will go to PARI Network to fund grassroots efforts to help Dalit women tell their own stories.
