Sarnath Banerjee

This event takes place as part of Berlin Art Week 2025.

When a comic book is staged well, it can produce unexpected experiences—melancholy, unease, joy, longing, and disquiet. By creating the right setting and tone, a comic book can almost write itself. Through these picto-textual performances, Sarnath Banerjee seeks to record the emotional history of our times. On the base of ordinary micro-encounters, he aims to explore the experiences that emerge when specificities meet and modernities collide.

A section of his work addresses the poorly understood political and social rifts between the diaspora and the newly arrived. Banerjee believes that performativity is at the heart of comic-making. In comics, text and pictures seldom explain each other; rather, they are in opposition. This creates something entirely uncanny, often beyond the imagination of the creator. As with theatre, makers can rarely predict the psychological states their work will evoke. While writing a comic, the author performs a place, a city, people, and their lived and un-lived fantasies. These stories are Banerjee’s way of coming to terms with the panic of the foreign and the cold dread of a so-called “home.”

The lecture performance will be followed by a conversation with Sarnath Banarjee, Sneha P., and Krishan Rajapakshe; moderated by Saba Bagheri.


Krishan Rajapakshe, *1984 in Negombo, Sri Lanka. Places of belonging: Negombo, Colombo, Berlin. Affinities: foundationClass, Common Cooking Practice (CCP). Zine: What does the river whisper when it meets the Sea?, 2025.

Sarnath Banerjee, *1972 in Burdwan, India. Places of belonging: Delhi. Book: Doab Dil, 2018.

Sneha P. Places of belonging: Bombay, Berlin. Affiliations: Berlin School of Economics.