Hello Everyone. I will be showing some of my works along with @avni.2303 at @round_them_oranges .
Come, slow down. And experience a new way of making and sharing.🌿
*Quiet Encounters #01*
Avni Bansal and Ayan Biswas
An exploration of motifs and textures, art that is made with a slow rhythm.
📍 Round Them Oranges, Jaipur
📅 11 April 2026 | 6pm
@quietartmovement
The idea behind this book was born out of a whim while engaging with the students from Tar village during Winter camp. Through participatory and collaborative workshops we explored how traditional photographic methods can be used to create an evolving archive which reflects the ideas of belonging and public memory. Every students made portraits of their family members and an object from their house that holds a story. Later the images were printed using light sensitive salts and toned with local tea and walnut dye.
The book brings together the works made by the students along with the images I have been taking during my visits to spend time with the locals. There are two parts to the book. When one side ends and we flip over, it starts again with photographs collected from family albums in the village which takes us to the past through the archives.
The Tar Village Association Winter Camp was a three-week immersive initiative organised by the Tar Youth Association for children and young adults from the village who were currently living in cities had returned during the winter break. The camp provided a space for them to reconnect with their roots through traditional winter practices, local knowledge systems and community-driven learning, alongside artisans, researchers and facilitators.
Thanks to @healthinc_ladakh for supporting this project.
Tar Village, January 2026
Changpe Nor Tang Gang-ge Rildog (2024 – Ongoing) by Ayan Biswas @_ayan.biswas
Salt has been one of the most fundamental elements shaping life across the Tibetan plateau and Ladakh. Counted among the four pillars of sustenance - tsampa (roasted barley), meat, salt, and tea - it travelled through histories of exchange, belonging, and survival. For the Changpas, Ladakh’s nomadic pastoralists, salt was not just a commodity but part of a larger rhythm of migration, barter, and self-reliance.
Over time, these rhythms altered. The closure of borders, the arrival of the ration system, and the gradual shift from polyandrous to nuclear families changed how the community engaged with both their land and their livestock. What once was carried across pastures and passes slowly gave way to decisions made from elsewhere, and the migration patterns that defined generations began to dissolve. Today, while Changthang continues as the most significant exporter of Pashmina, it also carries the weight of rapid ecological and social transformation.
This project looks at salt not only as a material, but as memory. Through various printing techniques, Ayan Biswas brings this material history into image-making. Some photographs are taken on a large-format camera and printed using salted paper printing, with salt gathered from local homes, recalling the days when families extracted it directly from the lakes. Here, the landscape itself becomes part of the photograph, embodying the cycles of exchange and adaptation that have shaped life in Ladakh.
Credits:
Salt collected from local ajang le named Dawa Tsering, who used to be part of the salt trade in 1980's.
Prints & images: Ayan Biswas
#Story #Salt #History #Culture #Community #Ladakh
Made this video during winters when I would spend time in the forest next to my house making photographs.
Likir, Ladakh
#largeformatphotography #xrayfilm #organicdeveloper #alternatephotography
Some photographs of my work at PheyMakerz Residency organised by @achiassociationindia .The images were hand printed on butter paper and later toned with local plants from the region.
Home is just an extension of the land. What brings it alive also changes with time, but isn't that a part of our lives? My work emerges from a reaction to the place, treating the ground as both material and memory. I started exploring the abandoned houses in the neighbourhood, finding objects that became a clue to the fragments of memory and their existence. This made me reimagine the spaces through images to create a dialogue between the past and the present, where uncertainty and search for answers were a constant companion.
This work titled 'Shape of House' invites viewers to reflect on the ways collective memory is constructed, preserved and altered. Constructing handmade cameras and exploring sustainable printing approaches using plants from the surroundings, I started making images where texture, abstraction and toning created a narrative blurring the lines between the real and the imagined. The translucent prints shows how layers of memories form and overlap over a period of time as the spaces get shared with various communities. At the same time it talks about the photography's ephemeral nature of eventually fading with time, encouraging viewers to engage with the images as a time sensitive experience that is going through a process of transformation.
Got this brilliant opportunity to document @_ayan.biswas art masterpiece in it's prime at The Palay House in Phey, Leh
@agirlcalledyellow will forever be grateful for this one!
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#art #leh #artistssupportingartists #artist #work #visualart #tradition #culture #localartist #contemporaryart #createcommune #viral #arthshila
PHEYMAKERZ EXHIBITION
In this work Ayan reflects on the evolving relationship between home, memory, and place, where abandoned houses and found objects serve as fragments of past lives. Through the project Shape of House, the artist explores collective memory by reimagining spaces using handmade cameras and sustainable printing methods. The resulting images blend abstraction and texture to blur the line between reality and imagination. The ephemeral nature of photography mirrors the shifting, layered memories shared across communities over time.
Meet our Residents for Pheymakerz 2025!
Ayan Biswas is a visual artist working with photography, printmaking and moving images. His practice explores themes of identity, human nature relationships and the spaces they inhabit. How objects and ordinary moments unfold personal histories into the collective. A major part of his work involves doing research on historical photographic methods and sustainable printing approaches. To him, it’s a way of rebuilding relation with the natural world through the process of image making, while exploring newer ecologies for the medium.
With this Residency, Palay House inaugurates a makerspace for Himalayan visual and material culture.
Please stay tuned for opportunities for you to visit Palay House and engage with the work of our Makers.
A very warm welcome to our residents!
#ladakh #conservation #achiassociationindia #aai #arthshila #leh #ladakhhistory #ladakhheritage #conservation #ecology #materialconservation #ecologicalconservation #architecture #design #art #material #vernacular #adaptivereuse #palayhouse #phey #residency #makers #pheymakerz #makerspace #discover #artindia #artsindia #artists #illustration #storytelling
