f The photographer archivist: Memory and landscape in the Anthropocene

Human civilization can now be considered to have crossed over to the Age of the Anthropocene, the current geological period when human activity has a great influence on the environment of the world and this has had severe implications on the environment. When André Bazin, French critic and film theorist writing between 1943 and 1958, penned his famous treatise on photography and cinema, the visual form was still in its formative years. However, in the present day the effects of the Anthropocene on geographic and topographic factors are creating different and newer discourses of memory in relation to the culture and society. Hence, it becomes essential to redefine the role of the photographer in these terms. This article looks at this role in the context of Sunderbans, a natural region of mangrove forest spanning southern Bangladesh and a small part of West Bengal in India, through the photography of Swastik Pal, an independent photographer and writer based in Calcutta.