Sayan Hazra, a documentary photographer and visual artist born in Howrah, divides his time between two Indian cities — Bengaluru and Kolkata. From an early age, he traveled extensively within India. After graduating in Computer Science & Engineering from the West Bengal University of Technology in 2007, he developed software for a decade. In 2018 he became a full-time freelance photographer. He was an event photographer and also photographed musical events for a range of clients. In the same year, he attended Foundry Photojournalism Workshop. He was the only person from Asia to receive the VII Foundation international scholarship to attend a series of photojournalism masterclasses in Warsaw, Poland in 2018-19. BBC featured his three works in 2018-19 — the first on an Indian tribe that gave up hunting to save forests, the second on the life in an Indian elderly home, and the third on the life of a Woman Disk Jockey in India. In 2019, Travel and Leisure published his documentation on the Hornbill festival in India as well as on the street art of Warsaw, Poland. In the same year, the Social & Political Research Foundation Journal published his work on electronic waste. In 2021, The Cortona On The Move collected his multimedia work "Truck Quarantine" as part of a permanent online archive on the Covid pandemic. In 2022, the Nature Journal commissioned him for their "Where I Work" project in India. Since 2020, the Diversify Photo community represents him as a person of color from the global south. The International Center of Photography in New York, awarded him the Director's Fellowship to pursue a one-year certificate program in "Documentary Practice & Visual Storytelling" in 2023.
PUBLICATIONS:
05/2020: Photo-Letter: Newsletter: Woman with a Disc
04/2020: Fotofestin Newsletter: Efectos del envejecimiento de la población en la India
03/2020: Broad Magazine: Bengaluru - Growing Fast
12/2019: Social and Political Research Foundation India: Chipping Away: The Paradox of Documenting E-Waste
11/2019: Discover India Magazine (Print): A Naga Feast
11/2019: Social and Political Research Foundation India: No Country for the Elderly
09/2019: Social and Political Research Foundation India:Glimpses from the Garden City
07/2019: Travel and Leisure Magazine (Online): Discovering Street Art In Warsaw Through The Lens Of Sayan Hazra
07/2019: Travel and Leisure Magazine (Print): Art for the Street
06/2019: BBC News: 'My parents wanted me to marry. I became a DJ'
01/2019: Travel and Leisure Magazine (Online): Discover The Nightlife Of The Nagas During The Hornbill Festival
01/2019: Travel and Leisure Magazine (Print): A Naga Feast
12/2018: BBC News: 'I don't want to burden my children': Life in an Indian care home
09/2018: BBC News: The Indian tribe that gave up hunting to save forests
EXHIBITIONS:
2021: Truck Quarantine — The Covid-19 Visual Project (The Economic Effects, Chapter 4.09), The Covid-19 Visual Project is an International Permanent Online Archive on the Coronavirus Pandemic by Cortona on The Move.
2021: Truck Quarantine — Online-Global-Exhibition-Link, The Covid Experience Dispatches from Asia, An online global exhibition by Poy Asia (POY Asia is a program of Pictures of the Year International)
2021: Truck Quarantine — Online-Global-Exhibition-Link, Indian Photo Festival 2021
2019: The Expendables— Kolkata International Photography Festival
INVITED TALKS:
2022: Lecture on “Social Media Application & Democratic Journalism”, Howrah Press Club, Howrah, India
2021: Artist talk on “How to fuse democratic journalism and remotely guided vernacular, photography using cross-platform social media applications?”, Fotofestín – Festival de Fotografía México, Mexico.
2020: Artist talk on “The Environmental Warriors of Khonoma, Nagaland”, Jaya He Museum Digital Carnival, Utsar 2020, Jaya He GVK New Museum, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport Mumbai, India
CONTACT:
Facebook: /sayan.images | Instagram: /sayan.images | Linkedin: /sayan-images
sayan.images@gmail.com
Photo Credit: Abir Bose