Nizamuddin at Night: Gauri Gill Photographs Her Neighbourhood

Gauri Gill, the contemporary Indian photographer, has spent nearly two decades photographing life in the everyday. Her images of daily life tell the stories of oppression, lack of education and healthcare, and the problems faced by the indigenous and minority communities in the country. In 2005, Gill began to venture out during the night on walks around her neighbourhood in East Delhi’s Nizamuddin area. As she walked, she made black-and-white photographs using her large rangefinder camera. This practice—spanning more than five years—resulted in the series Nizamuddin at Night.

In the night, Gill found things that the light of the day would not bring to her notice: houses lit by street lamps and the moonlight, the emptiness, the enigmatic shadows—all of which added to her experience. While her images capture quiet moments in the neighbourhood, they also reflect upon larger issues of migration, identity and urban lifestyles.

Post the Covid-19 lockdown, Gill returned to making photographs of her neighbourhood at night—this time in colour, using her phone. As her walks and photographs revealed a changed neighbourhood, Gill realised that she too had changed.

Responding to the present moment, Gill also excerpted some of the photographs from this series into a short photo montage for Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke. Accompanying her photographs is a recitation of Akhil Katyal’s poem An Evening Walk, While a Friend is in Prison. Dedicated to the jailed Pinjra Tod activist Natasha Narwal, the poem speaks of the beauty of simple things that we take for granted. Tinged with sorrow, the poem is ultimately hopeful that Narwal will one day be free. Katyal’s words seem to echo in Gill’s landscapes of the night.

All images by Gauri Gill.

Click on the image to view the album