Kolkata photographer presents river initiative at Jeju Forum
West Bengal: For Kolkata’s 26-year-old photographer Pubarun Basu, the journey began along the banks of the Ganga. By the end of June, that journey had taken him to one of Asia’s leading platforms for international dialogue, where he presented his river conservation and environmental education initiative, Dhara.
Invited by the UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia, Basu represented India’s youth and culture at the Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity 2026 in the Republic of Korea. The forum, held under the theme “Reinventing Cooperation in a Fragmented World,” brings together heads of state, former presidents and prime ministers, ministers, diplomats, United Nations leaders, academics and civil society representatives.
Basu, an English literature graduate from Bhawanipur Education Society in Kolkata, was the only international artist and the only Indian at the forum. He was invited to speak at UNESCO’s Environment & Climate Change session, “Global Co-Creation: Artistic Response to Climate Emergency,” organised by the UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia with the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province – Culture, Sports & Education Bureau.
Rooted in the Ganga-Yamuna river basin, Dhara uses documentary photography to encourage young people to learn from local ecological knowledge while recording the cultural and environmental relationships that have grown around rivers over generations.”Rivers carry far more than water. They carry culture, memory, identity, and generations of ecological wisdom,” Basu told the gathering.
A Forbes Under 30 honouree, Basu became the first Indian recipient of the Sony Youth Photographer of the Year in 2021 for his picture ‘No Escape from Reality’.
