Red Turtle Photobook

“In instances where there is no pre existing archive, my aim is to create an alternative archive, not an exact replica, but something that serves as another form of representation.”
— Soumya Sankar Bose
Recently published on Lenscratch, this conversation with Soumya Sankar Bose reflects on handmade artist books.

"Where the Birds Never Sing” revisits the history of the Marichjhapi massacre (1979) through photographs, testimonies, landscapes, and reconstructed imagery.

"A Discreet Exit Through Darkness / Things We Lost Last Night” explores disappearance of Bose’s mother at the age of 9. The book examines inherited memory, and fragile recollection through layered relationships between image and text.

"Let’s Sing an Old Song” unfolds through memory, sound, and nostalgia, using the artist book form as an intimate space for storytelling and remembrance of the vanishing artist of Jatra.

All the books are currently available at:
[email protected]
# # # # Where the Birds Never Sing : Only the last 50 copies remaining from the current edition.
If you've been meaning to experience this photobook, now might be a good time to reserve your copy.

Our book is available at the Kolkata Book Fair at Mandas, Stall No. 418. If you are planning to purchase a copy, please drop by and pick one up there.

✨ A Discreet Exit Through Darkness & Things We Lost Last Night ✨
by Soumya Sankar Bose
Published by Red Turtle Photobook and Mandas
Design by Barnali Bose

We’re deeply honoured that the book has been shortlisted for the 2025 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook of the Year.
Here’s an editor’s note from this year’s jury:

> “Ambitious and compelling, A Discreet Exit Through Darkness & Things We Lost Last Night recasts a harrowing family mystery—the disappearance of Soumya Sankar Bose’s mother in 1969 and her unexplained return years later. Designed to be flipped over and read from two different covers, the structure cleverly mediates the dual perspectives.”

> “Bose’s photographs convey fluency in multiple visual grammars—staged portraits, haunting landscapes, and interventions with vernacular family photos—all united by a dark, unflinching attention to narrative and atmosphere.”

> “Interweaving text and image, A Discreet Exit is a riveting, fraught, and innovative account of family trauma and its generational reverberations.” — Aperture

🖤

On 21st September 2025, we launched A Discreet Exit Through Darkness and Things We Lost Last Night at Experimenter, Ballygunge Place, Kolkata, in conversation with the incredible Dayanita Singh.

An intimate journey through personal loss, political turmoil, and the quiet weight of remembering, A Discreet Exit Through Darkness | Things We Lost Last Night is Soumya’s response to the disappearance of his mother in 1969 and his grandfather’s quiet search for her that ended before they could ever meet.

Both books are now available to buy — please check the link in our bio.

A heartfelt thank you to , , and everyone who came, listened, and shared the evening with us.

Posted • Friends in Kolkata, don’t miss Soumya Sankar Bose in conversation with photographer and curator Dayanita Singh as he launches his new book 𝘈 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘌𝘹𝘪𝘵 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 | 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘞𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘓𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 on Sunday, 21 September 2025, at Experimenter – Ballygunge Place, Kolkata, from 5 – 6:30 pm.

An intimate journey through personal loss, political turmoil, and the quiet weight of remembering, 𝘈 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘌𝘹𝘪𝘵 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 | 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘞𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘓𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 is Bose’s response to the disappearance of his mother in 1969 and his grandfather’s quiet search for her that ended before they could ever meet.

👉 To join the conversation, visit the official Instagram page of Experimenter Kolkata and click the link in bio.

📚 To order the book, please visit the link in the bio of Red Turtle Photobook....
Images:
2) Soumya Sankar Bose. Photo credit: Tim Bowditch
3) Dayanita Singh. Photo credit: Mads Alexander Selvig

[Soumya Sankar Bose, A Discreet Exit Through Darkness, Things We Lost Last Night, book launch, Dayanita Singh, conversation, Experimenter, Ballygunge Place, Kolkata]

A Discreet Exit Through Darkness is now at the printing stage!

If you haven’t pre-ordered your copy yet, now is the time. Only a few copies are left at the special discounted price of ₹2700 (original price ₹3200)and 75 USD(including shipping, original price 80 USD), limited to the first 100 orders.

This photobook explores a deeply personal family mystery — the disappearance of the artist’s mother in 1969 and her return years later with no memory of what happened. Told through two narratives — his grandfather’s search and his mother’s fragmented recollections — the book combines diary entries, photographs, and imagined memories.

Winner of the Louis Roederer Discovery Public Award at Rencontres d'Arles 2023.

Designed by Barnali Bose.

Pre-order now via the link in bio.

We're happy to announce that pre-orders are now open for the book A Discreet Exit Through Darkness. Please consider pre-ordering to support the book — link in bio.

A Discreet Exit Through Darkness traces a haunting family mystery: the disappearance of Soumya Sankar Bose’s mother in 1969, and her return, years later, with no memory of where she had been.

Told through two perspectives—his grandfather’s relentless search, and his mother’s fragmented recollections—this book weaves diary entries, photographs, and imagined memories into a quiet meditation on trauma, loss, and forgetting.

“A Discreet Exit Through Darkness” received the Louis Roederer Discovery Public Award at the Rencontres d'Arles in France, in 2023.

Original Price: ₹3200

Pre-order Price: ₹2700 (limited to first 100 copies)

Release: June 2025

Design: Barnali Bose

Edition: 500

We're happy to announce our fourth book 'Downtown Kolkata and Other Happenings' by Artist Sumit Basu. Sumit Basu(.sba1 ) is a photographer and artist based in Kolkata, India.

We'll open for order Soon.

Sumit Basu's 'Downtown Kolkata and Other Happenings' is a journey through the socio-cultural, architectural as well as naturalistic landscape of Kolkata, accompanied with a trace of ambiguity. Basu's lens often captures the serendipity or the accidental chance that the city offers every now and then, making his photographs more connected to the mundane yet magical existence of the spaces around us. Combining history, memory and imagination, his images communicate a story through the chiaroscuro of paradoxical semblances, typical of the city's metropolitan identity. In addition, Basu attempts to go beyond the transfer of his own ideas and leaves a space for ruminations for his viewers as well as this book poses an eternal question, "After all this - now what?"

We are open for pre-order... Ascension by & Design by

'After a time, deep in this place I found scenes I seemed to recognise, memories I seemed to own. It was a city and something more, a garden perhaps, or another realm. No matter how far I walked, the paths and the byways never seemed to end. What was I looking for? I knew only that I was looking.'

Ascension is Matthew Smith’s first Book. It received an Honourable Mention at the Lucie International Photo Awards 2020.

Featuring photographs taken in London, Venice and Tokyo, Ascension explores the hidden territory of the mind and the heart, through the outer world of a hybrid cityscape. Taken during a time of deep instability in Matthew’s life, which included the death of his first wife, the photographs reflect an inner journey that he needed to complete, through fear and grief, to find lasting courage and clarity of mind.