1991 Cyclone, Video Installation, 2021.
Brown Stoneware with Soil from Sandwip, Bone-Dry Sculpture, 2021.
Brown Stoneware with Soil from Sandwip, Bone-Dry Sculpture, 2021.
“Those who’ve survived the 1991 cyclone will never forget it, not for as long as they live. Never.”
“It was like any other evening: returning from the field, putting away the
cattle, eating, and sleeping. Earlier in the day, there was mention of a storm,
but we shrugged it off. Sandwip is no stranger to natural disasters. It wasn’t until late at night.
We were startled by extremely heavy rainfall and wind that tore off rooftops. No one could have foreseen the consequences. So many people died. For
weeks, all you heard were shrieking sounds of people in pain, a nonstop chorus
of crying everywhere you went. -Youssef, a survivor of the 1991 Cyclone
Sandwip, a riverine island along the southeastern coast of Bangladesh with a long history of settlement, drew international attention in 1991 when it endured one of the deadliest natural catastrophes in recent memory. At midnight on 29 April, a storm surge of six metres from the Bay of Bengal inundated the island, then home to an estimated 300,000 residents, resulting in the deaths of more than 50,000 people. That event remains a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities faced by coastal populations, vulnerabilities that are only intensifying as the Earth warms at an unprecedented rate.
In the aftermath, disaster-management reports largely emphasized shelter access, early evacuation, and institutional coordination, but paid less attention to the structural inequities embedded in household preparedness. Families on Sandwip are often compelled to stockpile dry staples such as rice and lentils, and to maintain clay stoves, because external relief is unreliable, effectively shifting the burden of resilience onto households themselves. A persistent lacuna in research and a lack of coordination have deepened mistrust between top-down disaster systems—shaped by the legacies of colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization and communities that continue to rely on kinship relations for continuity. Excluded from decision-making processes that frequently overlook ecological and infrastructural specificities, these communities are left to bear the weight of disasters they neither created nor invited.
Women are expected to manage their households, skip meals, and attend to caregiving and domestic chores on top of rebuilding their lives under extraordinary psychological and physical distress. We often forget that after a natural disaster, women perform these responsibilities in unsanitary conditions, even if pregnant or menstruating. How does one fulfill basic needs when the water to drink, cook, clean, and bathe is contaminated by animal carcasses and human bodies? This was the startling reality for women who lived through the 1991 cyclone.
The riverine and coastal people of Sandwip, like those in Kiribati, Louisiana, or coastal West Africa, embody traditions of reciprocity with fragile waters and land. Yet these place-based forms of knowledge are rapidly eroding under the pressures of environmental degradation, urbanization, and modern infrastructures, raising urgent questions about continuity, loss, and survival. Because cyclones and other natural disasters often leave behind few records or material objects, the histories of such places rely heavily on oral history. This project employs the methodology of microhistory to ask: whose land is preserved, and whose is sacrificed? Who has the privilege of shaping climate change adaptation, and who is left behind? And what can be learned from the inhabitants of Sandwip and other coastal cultures around the world whose profound bonds with tides, land, and biodiversity continue to carry lessons for collective survival?
Sandwip, a riverine island along the southeastern coast of Bangladesh with a long history of settlement, drew international attention in 1991 when it endured one of the deadliest natural catastrophes in recent memory. At midnight on 29 April, a storm surge of six metres from the Bay of Bengal inundated the island, then home to an estimated 300,000 residents, resulting in the deaths of more than 50,000 people. That event remains a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities faced by coastal populations, vulnerabilities that are only intensifying as the Earth warms at an unprecedented rate.
In the aftermath, disaster-management reports largely emphasized shelter access, early evacuation, and institutional coordination, but paid less attention to the structural inequities embedded in household preparedness. Families on Sandwip are often compelled to stockpile dry staples such as rice and lentils, and to maintain clay stoves, because external relief is unreliable, effectively shifting the burden of resilience onto households themselves. A persistent lacuna in research and a lack of coordination have deepened mistrust between top-down disaster systems—shaped by the legacies of colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization and communities that continue to rely on kinship relations for continuity. Excluded from decision-making processes that frequently overlook ecological and infrastructural specificities, these communities are left to bear the weight of disasters they neither created nor invited.
The riverine and coastal people of Sandwip, like those in Kiribati, Louisiana, or coastal West Africa, embody traditions of reciprocity with fragile waters and land. Yet these place-based forms of knowledge are rapidly eroding under the pressures of environmental degradation, urbanization, and modern infrastructures, raising urgent questions about continuity, loss, and survival. Because cyclones and other natural disasters often leave behind few records or material objects, the histories of such places rely heavily on oral history. This project employs the methodology of microhistory to ask: whose land is preserved, and whose is sacrificed? Who has the privilege of shaping climate change adaptation, and who is left behind? And what can be learned from the inhabitants of Sandwip and other coastal cultures around the world whose profound bonds with tides, land, and biodiversity continue to carry lessons for collective survival?