curatorial-practice-at-the-chennai-photo-biennale

Curatorial Practice at the Chennai Photo Biennale

Mallika Visvanathan Jan 04, 2025

The fourth edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB) with the theme “Why Photograph?” recently launched the first of its three phases in December 2024, and will be on display till March 2025 in various locations across Chennai. Mallika Visvanathan spoke to the curators of the primary shows about their vision and the insights they have acquired in reflecting on the biennale’s provocation.

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the-measure-of-value
events

The Measure of Value: Daughter of the Sea

Radhika Jan 02, 2025

Screened at the 9th edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival held in Goa from 15-22 December 2024, Nicole Gormley and Nancy Kwon’s 18-minute documentary Daughter of the Sea: Sisterhood in the Sea is a deeply moving and intimate account of the alienation caused by capital’s imperative of competition.

on-the-aldona-video-club
events

On the Aldona Video Club: In Conversation with Kapil Das and Grant Davis

Radhika Dec 25, 2024

The Aldona Video Club (AVC) is an ongoing film project that began in 2018 as a camera test. Founded by Kapil Das and Grant Davis, AVC attempts to blend traditional narrative modes of filmmaking with their parallel interest in more subversive forms of cinema and moving images. In this edited conversation, Kapil Das and Grant Davis speak with us about their practice as filmmakers and curators, their response tothe topography of Goa and audience responses to their choice of space for film screenings.
in-person-lawrence
events

In Person: I Am Lawrence Wilson by Varun Kodamana

Radhika Dec 20, 2024

Varun Kodamana’s documentary I Am Lawrence Wilson (2022) is a joyride into the magical world of analogue film through the life of its protagonist, the near-seventy-five-year-old cinephile and artist Lawrence Wilson. Programmed as part of Aldona Video Club’s public screenings at the 9th edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival from 15-22 December 2024 in Goa, the film uncovers the many sides of Wilson.
reading-between-the-signs
events

Reading Between the Signs: On Niharika Popli's If I Could Tell You

Anoushka Antonnette Mathews Dec 19, 2024

Screening at the 9th edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival, If I Could Tell You (2024) by Niharika Popli explores the lives of Surbhi and Charu, two working women from Delhi navigating the intersection of hearing and deafness. Charu, a deaf woman, grew up with a deaf sister in a hearing family, while Surbhi, a hearing woman, was raised by deaf parents with Indian Sign Language as her first language.

in-person-carbon
events

In Person: Carbon with Ravi Agarwal and David Verghese

Radhika Dec 18, 2024

Carbon, curated by the Science Gallery Bengaluru in collaboration with Ravi Agarwal, reflects upon carbon as “buried sunshine” as it explores the limits and conditions of possibility of carbon as both substance and phenomenon. The exhibition contemplates the dialectic inherent in the very nature of carbon.
in-person-the-everlasting-river
events

In Person: The Everlasting River by Dayananda Nagaraju and Niranjan NB

Radhika Dec 17, 2024

Dayananda Nagaraju and Niranjan NB’s project The Everlasting River (2024), presented as part of Food Matters at the 9th edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival from 15-22 December 2024 in Goa, is an invitation to reflect upon the civilisational significance of the Kaveri River.

on-ghosts-in-machines
events

On Ghosts in Machines: Responses to a Present Devouring Itself

Aparna Chivukula Dec 16, 2024

The exhibition Ghosts in Machines, curated by Damian Christinger at the Serendipity Arts Festival 2024, displays a sensitivity to the vocabularies and syntaxes of ecological time across a range of creative practices, including photography, archives, video and sound installations.
the-earth-walked-with-them
stories

The Earth Walked with Them: Rebellion and Trauma in Amma Ariyan

Kshiraja Dec 14, 2024

The final work of John Abraham, Amma Ariyan accents a non-linear fictional narrative with cinéma-vérité reports of ongoing and historical workers’ struggles, traversing the political and geographical landscape of Kerala. Screened as part of Dr. Omar Ahmed’s insightfully curated Rewriting the Rules: Pioneering Indian Cinema after 1970 at the Barbican, Amma Ariyan is rooted in the Parallel Cinema movement of the 1970s–90s.
comrade-saibaba
stories

Comrade Saibaba: A Fearless Teacher

K. Sajaya Dec 12, 2024

Writing on their many decade-long friendship, activist K. Sajaya reflects on the work and legacy of Prof. G.N. Saibaba. Even while incarcerated under the UAPA, Saibaba continued to help better the lives of those in jail. With images from Vasantha and Saibaba's family albums, personal recollections and excerpts from Saibaba's poetry, the author pays tribute to the spirit and legacy of G.N. Saibaba.

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on-documenting-conflict
events

On Documenting Conflict: Unseen Acts at the Another Lens Symposium

Mallika Visvanathan Dec 10, 2024

On 30 November 2024, a symposium at the India International Centre, New Delhi, celebrated the launch of the volume Another Lens: Photography and the Emergence of Image Culture (2024) edited by Rahaab Allana. The first panel of the day-long symposium was titled “Unseen Acts” and comprised artists Sheba Chhachhi, Iffat Fatima and Ishan Tankha, with the session moderated by Ashish Rajadhyaksha.
from-the-rural-archive
stories

From the Rural Archive: Peasants, Caste and Communalism

Vishal Singh Deo Dec 06, 2024

The private papers of the peasant leader Charan Singh (1947–87) and the Muzaffarnagar Zamindar Association (1920–45) are used here to trace the strategies adopted by the landowning class that ranged from posing as peasants in late colonial and postcolonial India to adhering to far-right politics from the 1990s. The essay tries to argue that the period following the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992 allowed proponents of peasant rights to reinvent themselves as gatekeepers of majoritarianism.
the-material-and-the-temporal
events

The Material and the Temporal: Rohini Devasher’s One Hundred Thousand Suns

Ankita Ghosh Dec 04, 2024

At Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Rohini Devasher’s solo exhibition One Hundred Thousand Suns is an ode to our nearest star in the solar system, the sun. Centred around Devasher’s four-channel immersive installation, which lends the exhibition its name, this audio-visual project tells the story of the sun and the people who dedicate their lives to the tradition of watching the sky.

foregrounding-the-background
events

Foregrounding the Background: Of Dancers, Princely States and Unwritten Histories

Anoushka Antonnette Mathews Dec 02, 2024

On 27 October 2024, Siddhi Goel and C. Yamini Krishna made presentations as part of the panel: “Forgotten Genres, Publics and Practices: The Understated Ecosystem of Indian Cinema” at IFA’s Past Forward: The Pleasure, Purpose and Practice of Arts Research. The presentation by Goel on the ecosystem of background Kathak dancers in the Bombay film industry and Krishna on the scant histories of films from the princely states illustrated cinema beyond the mainstream to uncover narratives and histories that have been relegated to the margins.

community-craft-and-legacy
events

Community, Craft and Legacy: Casting Music and Last Shoemakers of the Doon Valley

Vishal George Nov 30, 2024

In Casting Music (2016), Ashok Maridas follows the members of the Savita Samaj in Karnataka who face caste discrimination despite musical contributions as nadaswaram players. Lokesh Ghai and Jaymin Modi’s The Last Shoemakers of the Doon Valley (2024) locates the community of forty craftspersons producing custom-made footwear within the past and present of the social milieu of Dehradun and Mussoorie.
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