2026 Resident Artist Scholar Program

Debalina Majumder

2026 Resident Artist Scholar

The internationally acclaimed independent filmmaker, visual artist and environmental activist Debalina Majumder is the 2026 Resident Artist Scholar hosted by the working group Culture in Practice and Transfer - Public Anthropology at the Institute of Anthropology and Cultural Research (IfEK). Debalina Majumder will participate in co-teaching, faculty development, research grant and book writing workshops at the IfEK and a public event series in Bremen as the resident artist and guest lecturer from 21st June to 20th July 2026.

Prof. Dr. Nasima Selim, team leader of the working group Culture in Practice and Transfer - Public Anthropology at the University of Bremen, has been collaborating with Debalina Majumder for more than a decade as co-conspirator and research interlocutor in Kolkata, resulting in an article that they have co-authored (Selim, Biswas, and Majumder 2026, forthcoming in Resistance: A Journal of Radical Environmental Humanities). 

In between 2024 and 2025, Debalina Majumder spearheaded a campaign to save a tamarind tree in her neighborhood, a former refugee settlement in southern Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Planted by freedom fighter Parul Mukherjee (1915-1990), this tree hosts more than fifteen species of birds, insects, reptiles, small animals, produces fruits, oxygen, shade and shelter. When the tree was under threat, due to proposed redevelopment of the area, Debalina Majumder launched a vibrant eco-cultural movement and signature campaign to protect the tree and its verdant ecology. 

Through community engagement and multimodal, public initiatives like তেঁতুলতলার গান/ Tamarind Tunes, live concerts like Live at Tentultala, and a digital talk series, Tamarind Talks, Debalina Majumder and members of the Tamarind Tunes collective successfully mobilized public support, leading the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to ensure the tree’s protection and the restructuring of property boundaries to keep it on public land. 

The environmental advocacy was bolstered by her 30-minute documentary film, Friends of Jilipibala (Jilipibalar Bondhura), which premiered at the Kolkata International Film Festival in late 2025. The film uses 12 years of footage to document the diverse animal and bird life supported by the tree, framed through the perspective of a toddler named Jilipibala. The film received a Special Jury Award in the Competition on Indian Documentaries. 

The 2026 Resident Artist Scholar program organized by the working group Culture in Practice and Transfer - Public Anthropology at IfEK received financial support from the Internationalization Fund and WOC (Worlds of Contradiction) BNCL (BremenNatureCultureLab)