Recurring natural disasters in the Odisha region have rendered the concept of home secondary or temporary. These disasters have forced many marginalized, climate-dependent communities living along the Bay of Bengal into perpetual migration. Among them are the Odia, who are coastal farmers, and the Telugu‑speaking Nolia fishermen. These populations are now in a constant state of transit, crossing borders into neighboring states, constantly on the move or evacuated to rehabilitation colonies, using communication technologies such as mobile phones, the Internet, and social media to stay connected.

A Fate’s Brief Memoir is an exploratory work that aims to capture the nature of this state of transit and its different temporal registers. It records the “traces” left by the fishermen and coastal farmers during their climate-induced migrations. Drawing its title from Agha Shahid Ali’s eponymous poem, this series of lenticular prints creates a constant back-and-forth movement between sites of disaster and shelters, rehabilitation colonies and other temporary migratory spaces. It encourages the audience to also follow this back-and-forth motion in order to see the images clearly. These dramatic episodes of climate migration are condensed into a single experience, with images from before and after the catastrophe revealed on the same surface.