I, Arindam Manna, am an artist born in Suri, West Bengal, India. I graduated with a BFA in Painting from Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan. After that, I did an MFA from Shiv Nadar University, Uttar Pradesh, India.

My processes develop through an immersive engagement with the temporalities and worlds contained within the ancient Grand Trunk Road and its passage across the Indian subcontinent. My project "Transience and Materiality" started during research in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, along the Grand Trunk Road, where I encountered migration narratives and spaces/lives in flux—phenomena amplified in small towns like Dadri and Chithera. The Grand Trunk Road morphs into National Highway 19 as it traverses the Birbhum region in Bengal, and the town of Suri, where I live. During my research, I observed small shops and dhabas, abandoned factories, junkyards, barren lands, buffer zones and different communities beside the Grand Trunk Road.

Employing a psychogeographical approach, I explore the embedded criticalities and narratives within the landscapes and spaces adjoining this thoroughfare. My fieldwork involves site visits, meticulously recorded through notes, mind maps, photographs, and video footage. From this corpus of material, I aim to create multi-sensory experiences through the modes of performativity, drawing, video, and artist books/photobooks. The body becomes the catalyst, engaging in actions that establish connections with the surrounding space. The space, in response, acts as a reactive entity, filtering and returning sensory codes and sensations to the body. This reciprocal interaction creates spatial sensations and embodied experiences that form the essence of my artistic practice.