(MENAFN - Swissinfo)
Since moving to Switzerland in 2018, Ishita Chakraborty has deepened the scope of her work, dissolving geographical and conceptual borders from India to Brazil. Interviewed in ...
As an online editor at the Portuguese department who is in charge of SWI swissinfo's culture coverage, I work as reporter, editor, art & film critic, while also coordinating freelance collaborations.
Born in São Paulo, Brazil, I studied Film and Economics but made a career in journalism in several capacities (reporter, editor, international correspondent) before moving to documentary films, as developer and producer, and then to visual arts (in art publishing and as a curator). I joined SWI swissinfo in 2017, where I could bring all this broad experience to the coordination of our cultural section.
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Portuguese Departme
As a photo editor I am responsible for the editorial use of photography at SWI swissinfo and our collaborations with photographers. When the opportunity arises, I take a camera and accompany one of our journalists.
I trained as a photographer in Zürich and began working as a photojournalist in 1989. I was a founder of the Swiss photographers' agency Lookat Photos in 1990. A two-time World Press Award winner, I have also been awarded several Swiss national scholarships. My work has been widely exhibited and it is represented in various collections.
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This summer, Ishita Chakraborty is perhaps the most famous person in Aarau, a city 50 kilometres west of Zurich. Her name features prominently on posters all over the city centre advertising her solo exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus (Aargau Fine Arts Museum). The show comes on the heels of her winning a major award – the Manor Cultural Prize – consolidating her standing as a rising talent on the Swiss art scene.
Chakraborty could now sit back and enjoy the recognition due to a career marked by much travel, experimentation with artistic and poetic forms, and hard work. But she is restless.
We meet at her studio close to Aarau, just before she is to leave for research trips to London and Liverpool. She is excited but overwhelmed. Besides the prizes and invitations, she is also preparing a solo exhibition planned for September at Galerie Peter Kilchmann, one of Zurich's most prestigious art dealers.
Travel snapshots on the studio's wall: linking the Brazilian Amazon to the Indian Sundarbans.
Thomas Kern / SWI swissinfo
Born in Shearophuli, a small village 30km north of Kolkata, Chakraborty grew up in the north of Bengal province, close to the Himalayas, and finished her studies in Kolkata. She“had to push [her] boundaries from a very early age”, she says. Gender was a hurdle from the outset in a strictly patriarchal society, although her family on her mother's side was quite progressive.
Class – more so than caste – was another obstacle to overcome.“I belong to an upper caste, but I don't belong to an upper class. My family was emerging lower-middle class”, she says. And then there was her skin colour.“I was born so dark-skinned that I was not very welcome to some parts of my family.”. All of these factors made life very limited, but Chakraborty says she“didn't want to be put in a box and play the role of the obedient woman.”
After a peripatetic academic career and several odd jobs in Kolkata, Chakraborty applied for an artistic residence in Aarau. She knew almost nothing about Switzerland beyond the fantasy musical sequences of Bollywood films shot in the Alpine country, and cheap landscape posters.“In fact, I didn't have any need to go to Europe,” she says.“I was just curious”.
Installing one of her first exhibitions in Kolkata, shortly after graduation from Rabindra Bharati University.
Courtesy of Ishita Chakraborty
The half-year residency evolved into a master's degree at Zurich's University of the Arts (ZHdK) and, eventually, to marriage with Swiss photographer Thomas Kern – author of the images that accompany this article (Thomas Kern is a visual editor at SWI swissinfo).
The range of her practice naturally expanded.“When I see this map, the itinerary of my practice, I notice that it has become more and more intersectional over time. Early on, I was interested more in gender, race, and class, but now my interests are much wider,” she says.“Besides, I moved home many times, so these narratives of home and migration were already present even before I moved to Switzerland.”
Switzerland also offered new dimensions – literally. In the beginning, Chakraborty used to work on a small scale, with watercolours and miniatures.“It had to do with the spaces I used to dwell in. I lived in small rooms, travelled a lot by train and bus. Now, thanks to the prizes and grants, I can afford a studio, and it opens up physical and mental space for larger installations. But that doesn't mean that I stopped with the small pieces. I like to alternate between big and small.”
Coming to live in Europe with a mindset focused on gender, class, and race issues, Chakraborty inevitably, or rather naturally, had to face the question of colonialism. And just like the colonial enterprise, her investigations and curiosity took her to antipodal places, effectively retracing an ancient Portuguese route from the viewpoint of the colonised.
“Seeds and Souls” – Group exhibition at the Copenhagen Kunsthal, curated by Christine Eyene, September 2023.
David Stjernholm
Ishita Chakraborty arranging ceramic mushrooms, part of her project“Europa”, inside a cargo container set on a wasteland in Oerlikon, near Zürich, September 2022.
Thomas Kern
Installation view of the Manor Kunstpreis exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, curated by Anouchka Panchard, May to August 2025.
Aargauer Kunsthaus / Luca Klett
“Common Ground”, 8th Weiertal Biennale near Winterthur, curated by Sabine Rusterholz Petko, 2023. On the right, detail of the Manor Kunstpreis exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, 2025.
Claudia Luperto and Nathanael Gautschi
An installation view of the Manor Kunstpreis exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, curated by Anouchka Panchard, May to August 2025
Aargauer Kunsthaus / Luca Klett
An installation view of the Manor Kunstpreis exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, curated by Anouchka Panchard, May to August 2025
Aargauer Kunsthaus / Luca Klett
“Whispering Benches” – public art project curated by Gianni Jetzer. Lengnau, May 2022.
Thomas Kern
“Europa – fired, unglazed ceramic clay mushrooms, Auswahl22”, Aargauer Kunsthaus (December 2021 to January 2022).
Aargauer Kunsthaus / David Aebi
Prix Mobilière, Installation View, at ArtGeneva, Switzerland. January 25- 28, 2024
Nathanael Gautschi
An image of Ishita Chakraborty during a research trip to the Brazilian Amazon close to the Tapajós River (left) and an image of a performance together with artist and activist Vandria Borari (right), Brazil 2024.
Courtesy of the Artist
“Exotische Pfnazen im Garten – Was tun?” Chakraborty's contribution to the exhibition“Apropos Hodler- Current perspectives on an icon”, Zurich Museum of Fine Arts (Kunsthaus Zürich) with a selection of contemporary artists dialoguing with the Swiss master Ferdinand Hodler, March until June 2024.
Kunsthaus Zürich
India and Brazil are rather antipodal countries, too far apart to develop strong ties beyond the diplomatic (both countries are members of the Brics ) and, on a modest scale, trade relations. But five centuries ago, they were much closer, as the same colonising power – Portugal – invaded their shores.
Chakraborty's exploration of the Amazon was triggered by a serendipitous encounter while taking part in an exhibition in Basel. She met the Amazonian ceramist and activist Vandria Bonari. Their first conversation would repeat itself almost anecdotally during her trip.
“She asked me, 'Are you Indian?'” Chakraborty recalls.“I said, 'Oh yeah, how do you know?' I thought, oh I look so Indian. But there was another dialogue behind it, for then she asked me from which community I was”, she laughs.“And then we realised that we are both 'Indians', which in fact is a denomination invented by the colonisers in India and in the Americas.”
Chakraborty decided to apply for a grant from the Swiss arts council Pro Helvetia, and spent three months in the Brazilian Amazon in 2024.“The maps in my mind are very small. They expand when it's needed”, she says.
Through language, Bonari and Chakraborty began to discover many points of contact.“In my mother tongue, there are a lot of Portuguese words because I grew up in the Ganges Delta by the Hooghly River where the Portuguese established a trading post long before the British took it over. So in my Bengali language I say also janela [window], varanda [balcony], among many other Portuguese traces.”
Still life in motion: the artist's desk.
Thomas Kern / SWI swissinfo
For Chakraborty, these common words become a bridge between the two cultures, which are also entangled with their respective pasts. She did not have any specific project in mind when she went to the Amazon.“I told Pro Helvetia that I didn't want to produce anything while there. I often feel this kind of pressure from the West to always be productive; if you go somewhere, you have to bring something. I wanted to unlearn that. My primary goal was to live with these people,” she says.
Living among the communities in the region of the lower Tapajós river in the state of Pará (whose capital, Belém, will host the next COP30), Chakraborty applied an approach similar to the one she used in the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove delta in Bengal, near the Indian border with Bangladesh. In both places, people do not distinguish between nature and culture, she says.“The co-existence of these two realms is very much ingrained in daily life, and more visible in the myriad of rituals”.
Ishita Chakraborty is walking barefoot through the muddy mangrove forest during low tide. Collecting plant samples, taking pictures and listening to the sound of the Sundarban are the artist's research tools for her to create future work. The Sundarbans are a part of West Bengal and close to where the artist lived most of her life.
Thomas Kern
In the Indian Sundarbans, Chakraborty was looking for the songs of resistance sung by the fisherwomen's community.“Their storytelling and songs talk about not over-consuming the forest. They sing about the rich diversity of the ecosystem. It's a dense forest of crocodiles and tigers and fish and humans. But I'm just not interested in the beautiful part of this – I'm interested in these women's narratives.”
A very important ritual among the fisherwomen of the Sundarbans and the Amazon indigenous communities is cooking. By mixing ingredients and spices, the colonial impact on the migration of plants and the melting pot of tastes comes to the fore.
The Portuguese introduced cashew nuts to India and took mango and coconut seeds to Brazil. For Chakraborty, the curry mixes that can be found in any Western supermarket (“most of the time you don't have any idea of what's inside these little jars”) are a good example.
What we perceive as the elements of curry today has much to do with colonial exchange and occupation, and the migration of plants.“These are also histories and stories of migration. I like to connect little dots,” she says.
Posters of the last few exhibitions decorate the walls of the artist's studio where she spends much of her time, cooking as well when she is receiving curators and other visitors.
Thomas Kern / SWI swissinfo
Every Indian family, and every Indian cook, makes his or her own curry.“It's also connected to the region, the season, and to temperature. Each ingredient has a role it plays in your body. How much cumin should you use for this particular curry, and why? Why will you use raw coriander seeds? Because it calms down your body; when you put in a certain amount of paprika, you have to put in a corresponding amount of curcuma, so it balances your body to the heat of the country.”
Ishita Chakraborty – Manor Art Prize 2024External link
On display at the Aargauer Kunsthaus until 24.8.2025
Ishita Chakraborty at Galerie Peter KilchmannExternal link
From September 19 to October 25, 2025, Zurich.
Edited by Catherine Hickley /gw
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