The Silenced Market

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“There’s no such thing as the voiceless. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard” - Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living 

The Indian subcontinent and the Indian archipelago were integral to the vast global trade networks of the imperial economy, shaped by maritime commerce. The shore - here colonial traders and tourists first encountered the lands they sought to control—was not merely a point of arrival but an active site of negotiation, desire, and dispossession. The sea, as both a conduit of capital and conquest, facilitated the circulation of goods, people, and ideologies while reinforcing asymmetries of power that rendered certain bodies—particularly those of the colonized—precarious.

The European gaze on the region, particularly in the early 20th century, played a crucial role in shaping colonial perceptions of the subcontinent. Visual archives from this period, especially those documenting famine-stricken Bengal and the Indian archipelago, reveal a distinct visual economy—one that framed famished bodies and impoverished communities as passive spectacles of suffering. Ethnographers and missionaries often conflated poverty, sexuality, and moral decay to justify interventionist policies, reinforcing narratives of dominance while erasing the agency and resilience of those they sought to control.

The Zwischenraum exhibition, "The Silenced Market", by artist-in-residence Sujatro Ghosh, reinterprets established narratives of the region’s colonial past by working with photographs from the 1890s to the 1930s in the MARKK archives. By tracing the trajectories of traded objects and the maritime infrastructures that sustained them, the project reveals how colonial economies of desire and dispossession were inscribed onto both landscapes and bodies—rendering the sea not just a space of movement but a site of profound historical violence. These dominant histories, shaped by selective photography, censorship, and misrepresentation, have long served to justify colonial narratives. Through his multidisciplinary practice, Sujatro Ghosh challenges these imperial interpretations, repositioning power within the people and communities who resisted. By transforming archival material into a contemporary space of memory and defiance, his work becomes both a memorial and a testament to resilience—dismantling mainstreamised colonial histories while reclaiming agency for those silenced by them.

The Silenced Market is not a static exhibition, but an evolving process, unfolding over the course of Sujatro Ghosh’s residency at MARKK. Developed in three stages, it begins with a prelude and gathering on April 8, extends through a major presentation at the Lange Nacht der Museen Hamburg on April 26, and culminates in a final opening and performance on June 5. The exhibition will remain on display until autumn 2025. This gradual approach reflects the artist’s process—where dismantling, reconfiguring, and recontextualising become crucial methods for questioning colonial histories and reshaping museum collections with a more critical and inclusive perspective.

By immersing itself in archival photographs, material memory, and object-making, the exhibition resists the fixity of historical representation. Objects, often displaced from their original contexts, are reimagined through shifting formats—video, textiles, sound, and installation—allowing for a more nuanced storytelling beyond the rigid confines of the imperial gaze. Bengal and Hamburg, both shaped by histories of maritime trade, are brought into dialogue, reflecting on Hamburg’s entanglement with colonial trade.

Opening Performance — The Silenced Market '25 by Anand Dhanakoti and Sujatro Ghosh, marking the launch of the exhibition at the MARKK (Museum am Rothenbaum – Kulturen und Künste der Welt), Hamburg. 

Performance Text: Sujatro Ghosh

Cinematography & Editing: Priyanka Sarkar

Sound: Jasmina Al-Qaisi & Sujatro Ghosh

Music: Nao Chhariya De by Abbasuddin Ahmed.

শ্রীচরণেষু ভাত… (Dear Rice…) imagines a funeral of rice held in a dystopia, where rice is on the verge of extinction. While Sujatro Ghosh’s video and installation metaphorically show the presence and absence of rice in human life, his sonic archives shares us personal accounts of Bengali women, which revolves around the idea of resistance, remembrances and communal history of Bengal and South Asia. The sonic archive, in Bangla and English, emphasizes the significance of rice as a form of nutrition, a crop, as well as its cultural, social, and commemorative significance. The archive reminds us of the Indian Farmers protesting against the farmers bill** of 2020 for their rights to harvest. Above all, the work serves as a reminder of the brutal colonial accounts of the Bengal Famines, and how rice is "irreplaceable" in people’s life.

শ্রীচরণেষু ভাত… (Dear Rice…) reveals the point where human greed collide with the complex moral issues related to exploitations of other beings. Human greed has triumphed, prompting crises which have stripped off rice, which was once the lone companion for many. Furthermore, it would serve as a sombre reminder to subsequent generations to act or potentially lose what may have been a part of their lives.

** Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance, Farm Services Bill, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020: These three legislations were introduced by the Far-right populist Indian government in the year 2020, soon after protests erupted since they were seen as anti-farmer laws. Several farmers' organizations vowed an enhanced movement against the acts across the length and breadth of India. After almost a year-long protest, the Indian Government repealed the agricultural legislation, citing a victory to the people in November 2021.

Curated by Yeni Ma

Thanks to Srabasti Ghosh, Brunella Torricelli and Aparajita Ghosh for their contributions to this work.