MANIKARNIKA KANJILAL - EXPOSURE EMERGING PHOTOGRAPHERS SHOWCASE
Flying over the mouth of Mackenzie Delta in a Piper Arrow airplane, one realizes the limitation of cameras, or of humans. Aeronautical charts fail here as millions of lakes and alluvial islands get flooded, drained, eroded, and re-formed every year as temperatures rise, ice thaws and permafrost melts. Drunken trees cast tiny silhouettes against the edges of the water. The only constant is the river carrying massive amounts of silt and debris into the Arctic. Attempt to find pods of whales in this breathtaking, immense space seem futile. Yet, almost dream-like, another plane silently passes by amidst afternoon showers and haze from arctic wildfires.
In Search of Belugas is a limited approximation of the immense space that is Mackenzie Delta. Pictures taken with a swing-lens panoramic camera and 35mm redscale film converted to black and white and a Ricoh GR.
BIOGRAPHY
Manikarnika is an emerging artist living and working in Edmonton, Canada. In her day job, she is an economist. Her academic career has focused on the study of human behaviour and its interactions with the environment. This spills over into her artistic practice.
Growing up in Kolkata, she didn’t have an opportunity to study fine art or photography formally. But she loved taking pictures whenever she could, using any camera she could lay her hands on – mostly disposables or plastic film cameras. After she moved to Edmonton to complete her doctorate in agricultural and resource economics, she found a community of photographers and artists, took pictures during the day, and wrote her thesis at night. Leica Fotografie International published her first set of pictures in the LFI online curated gallery in 2012. Since then, she has published on LFI online and print magazines, done commissions and assignments, and group exhibitions in Canada. Her photography also forms a basis of her printmaking and watercolour works. In 2021, she was shortlisted for the prestigious BarTur Photo Award for her work on Canadian glacier melt.
Her academic training and experience brought her gaze into the socio-economic impacts of climate change in her two homes – India and Canada. Her current works focus on documenting indications and impacts of climate change.
