Indian born American artist-writer-educator-activist Subhankar Banerjee works to raise awareness about issues that threaten the health and well-being of our planet. Since late 2000 he has focused much of his efforts on indigenous human rights and land conservation issues in the Arctic. His ongoing project land as home has been instrumental in the conservation efforts of the ecologically and culturally significant areas of the American Arctic, including, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Teshekpuk Lake wetlands, Utukok River uplands, Beaufort and Chukchi seas. He works closely with the Gwich'in and Inupiat indigenous communities of Alaska and the Canadian Yukon, and most recently with the Yukaghir and the Even indigenous communities of Siberia.
His Arctic photographs have been exhibited in over fifty one-person and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe, including solo exhibitions at Hood Museum of Art (2007) and Hopkins Center for Arts at Dartmouth College (2009). His exhibition MONOGRAPH with essay by Professor Karl Jacoby of Brown University was published by Dartmouth College Artist-in-Residence Program (2009). His first book ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE: SEASONS OF LIFE AND LAND was published by The Mountaineers Books (2003). Through a generous grant from Lannan Foundation, a traveling exhibition was organized by the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, and ten thousand copies of the book was donated to indigenous communities, libraries, students, activists, and policy makers in the United States and other Arctic countries.
His work has received favorable art criticisms and discussed in publications including, American Art (SUMMER 2009), Art in America (2008 - REVIEW | ESSAY), The New York Times (2009 | 2004), ARTnews (2005), and Art Papers (2007). Professor Finis Dunaway's essay Reframing the Last Frontier: Subhankar Banerjee and the Visual Politics of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is included in A KEENER PERCEPTION: ECOCRITICAL STUDIES IN AMERICAN ART HISTORY (2009). His photographs have been published in over one-hundred magazines and newspapers internationally, including two collaborations with writer Peter Matthiessen for The New York Review of Books (2007 | 2006), and two articles in Vanity Fair (2008 | 2003 PROFILE BY INGRID SISCHY). His writings have appeared in the journal THE SCHOLAR & FEMINIST published by Barnard College of Columbia University (2008), in CLICK! PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGES EVERYTHING, a project of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative (2008), and in THE ALASKA NATIVE READER: HISTORY, CULTURE, POLITICS published by Duke University Press (2009). His stories have been featured in multiple television productions including, Sundance Channel's series BIG IDEAS FOR A SMALL PLANET: SEASON 1, EPISODE CREATE (2007). Banerjee has given many radio and television interviews including, AMY GOODMAN ON DEMOCRACY NOW (2009). He contributed his photographs and writing for various advocacy publications including, national ad in The New York Times that he co-designed (2005), and reports published by The Wilderness Society (2009), Gwich'in Steering Committee (2005), and Audubon Alaska (2001).
Subhankar has given over fifty lectures and participated in panels including at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College (2009, 2007), Columbia College in Chicago (2009), United Nations Headquarters in New York (2008), University of Utah in Salt Lake City (2008), Barnard College in New York (2008), Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington (2007), Milwaukee Art Museum (2007), Authors at Google Lecture Series (2006), Seattle Arts and Lectures at Benaroya Hall in Seattle (2500 attendees - 2005), Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe (2004), Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (2004), Columbia University Earth Institute (2004), and Harvard University Museum of Natural History (2004).
During winter 2009 he was ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He has been a visiting artist at the F.A.R. (Future Arts Research) at Arizona State University in Phoenix (2008) and a visiting scholar at the College of Humanities at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City (2006-2008). He has received an inaugural Greenleaf Artist Award from the United Nations Environment Programme (2005), an inaugural Cultural Freedom Fellowship from Lannan Foundation (2003), a National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation (2003), a Special Achievement Award from the Sierra Club (2003), and Housberg Award from the Alaska Conservation Foundation (2002). He serves on the advisory board of BLUE EARTH ALLIANCE in Seattle, and the partnership board of the ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES GRADUATE PROGRAM at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Since 2006 he has been photographing near his home in New Mexico, a project titled, Where I Live I Hope To Know. Subhankar and his wife Nora live in New Mexico.
