Urbana Americana emerges from a journey into an unfamiliar place and an attempt to understand it. It is an outsider’s perspective. Not because I resisted belonging, but because I could not, not entirely. I was born and raised in rural Bengal, India, and later moved to a small town in the American Midwest. This transition brought me into a world markedly different from the one I had always known.
Growing up exposed to American pop culture gave me a false sense of familiarity. The America I arrived in, however, was quieter, slower, and more withdrawn than I had imagined. The warmth and openness of my own cultural background did not easily find a place here.
This collection reflects my attempt to navigate that gap. In moments of homesickness, I returned to an old companion: the land. In its stillness, I discovered fragments of familiarity. Street corners, backyards, and quiet scenes resonated with something I knew deeply. Through these encounters, I began to understand the place on its own terms.
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Sangram (b. 1990, India) is a photographer and physicist. His work is shaped by ancestral memory and the experience of moving between cultures and economic classes. Using photography as a way of looking closely, he explores the intersections of culture, class structures, politics, place, and time, tracing his own shifting position within them. His images emerge from an ongoing dialogue between the outer world and an inner landscape, where observation becomes a means of understanding and reflection.
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Edition: 100
Page Count: 28
Dimensions: 5.5”x 8.5”
Format: Saddle Stitch / Zine
ISBN: 978-1-962415-17-0
Urbana Americana emerges from a journey into an unfamiliar place and an attempt to understand it. It is an outsider’s perspective. Not because I resisted belonging, but because I could not, not entirely. I was born and raised in rural Bengal, India, and later moved to a small town in the American Midwest. This transition brought me into a world markedly different from the one I had always known.
Growing up exposed to American pop culture gave me a false sense of familiarity. The America I arrived in, however, was quieter, slower, and more withdrawn than I had imagined. The warmth and openness of my own cultural background did not easily find a place here.
This collection reflects my attempt to navigate that gap. In moments of homesickness, I returned to an old companion: the land. In its stillness, I discovered fragments of familiarity. Street corners, backyards, and quiet scenes resonated with something I knew deeply. Through these encounters, I began to understand the place on its own terms.
____
Sangram (b. 1990, India) is a photographer and physicist. His work is shaped by ancestral memory and the experience of moving between cultures and economic classes. Using photography as a way of looking closely, he explores the intersections of culture, class structures, politics, place, and time, tracing his own shifting position within them. His images emerge from an ongoing dialogue between the outer world and an inner landscape, where observation becomes a means of understanding and reflection.
____
Edition: 100
Page Count: 28
Dimensions: 5.5”x 8.5”
Format: Saddle Stitch / Zine
ISBN: 978-1-962415-17-0
