NILANJAN DAS

In Search of Comfort Zone is a series of works initiated from 2018. In Search of Comfort Zone emerges from my studio practice while remaining conceptually aligned with my broader engagement with public space and intimacy. During my residency at 1 Shanthiroad Studio and Gallery in Bangalore in 2018, I closely observed Cubbon Park. The park undergoes distinct social transformations throughout the day. It becomes a site of intimacy for couples of different sexuality during the daytime; by evening, it is occupied by sex workers. These shifting uses often lead authorities to discourage public displays of affection. This experience led me to examine how gender, intimacy, and moral regulation operate within public spaces across different socio-cultural contexts. I began photographing public park benches across India, as they function as primary sites of rest, proximity, and interaction. Over these photographs, I drew lines of separation, not as physical barriers but as metaphors for the invisible boundaries through which society regulates gendered intimacy in public space. Through this process, my studio practice became an extension of my public engagement, translating lived observations into layered visual interventions that question access, surveillance, and belonging. The series draws inspiration from Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the
Right to the City, which asserts that urban space is not merely accessed but socially produced and contested by its inhabitants. By foregrounding public benches, ordinary yet politically charged sites of proximity the works question who has the right to occupy, inhabit, and express intimacy within shared urban environments.