Sanskriti Chattopadhyay
Om Sanskriti Chattopadhyay
Sanskriti Chattopadhyay is born and brought up in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. Interested in the cultural heritage of the landscape she has been born into, often her work is informed by the same. Currently, she is a doctoral researcher in Artistic Research in HDK Valand Academy for Arts and Design, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research is titled "Eyes of the Other: Deconstructing Imagination". The project questions the idea of a “decolonial image,” arguing that images are not fixed objects but relational events shaped by history, perception, and context. Because colonial power structures influence visual regimes, no universal decolonial image can exist. Instead of defining one, the project proposes a flexible, context-sensitive “methodology of methodologies” for creating and interpreting images. This approach emphasises process over product, recognising images as evolving encounters rather than stable forms. Through iterative engagement between theory, practice, and case studies, it seeks to open perceptual ruptures within colonial frameworks, developing tools to rethink how images are produced, experienced, and understood.
She has a Post Graduate Diploma (equivalent to Masters’) in Film Direction and Screenplay Writing from the Film and Television Institute, India. She has a previous MA degree in Literary and Cultural Studies from English and Foreign Language University, India (2015). She has also been a part of several prestigious artistic research projects – at Lucerne School of Art and Design, Switzerland (2021), Film University Babelsberg, Konrad Wolf (2020, 2019) and BRICS collaboration with WITS Film and Television, SA and Valand Film Programme, India Chapter (2018). She was invited to the Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival and Filmmaking Bootcamp in Winton, Australia (2019). She has received the PIFF Special Award instituted by Miss Maria Prochazakova (2019). Her documentary “Reality without a Name‟ has been curated and shown in the “Cinema of Resistance‟ Section of the 12th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of India. She has also worked as a videographer for Ms Kapwani Kiwanga for the India Chapter of her video installation project “The Sun Never Sets‟. Previous to these, she was part of a PhD program at the Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, India (Unfinished, 2015-2016). She has been interested in finding a point of coalescence between art practice and academic practice in her work as a filmmaker-researcher.