Artist-in-residence this year at the Chair of Arts, Societies and Contemporary Transformations at the Institut, Soumya Sankar Bose announces the release of his new book A Discreet Exit Through Darkness, scheduled for June 2025. This photobook explores a family tragedy through a dual narrative imbued with mystery and poetry.
Photographer and visual artist Soumya Sankar Bose continues his work of memory and intimate investigation with the upcoming release of A Discreet Exit Through Darkness. This artist’s book revisits a deeply moving episode from the author's family history: the unexplained disappearance of his mother in 1969, and her return years later with no memory of what she had experienced.
Structured around two interwoven narratives — A Discreet Exit Through Darkness and Things We Lost Last Night — the book offers two perspectives: that of his grandfather, who searched tirelessly for his missing daughter, and that of his mother, who returned with no memory of the years she had been gone. Through these intersecting stories, Bose explores the shadowy areas of family memory and the silences of history.
Already presented in 2023 at several international venues — in Nantes (Le Lieu Unique), Geneva (Centre de la Photographie), London (Delfina Foundation), as well as in India in Mumbai and Kolkata — this work received the prestigious Louis Roederer Discovery Public Award at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2023.
