Journeying the Mississippi: Sohrab Hura’s The Levee

In Sohrab Hura’s photobook The Levee (2020), the muddy brown waters of the Mississippi river ripple through the dust jacket. Underneath this is a stretched moss green raw silk book cover, embedded with a golden trace of the river’s meandering form.

On an invitation from American artists and photographers Alec Soth and Jim Goldberg, Sohrab Hura set out on a road trip in April 2016; a few months after his father’s last journey in the Merchant Navy—on a cargo ship up the Mississippi. The journey begun at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers outside Cairo (Illinois) and ended at the levee at Pilot Town, south of New Orleans. Without the deliberate intention of creating a book about this journey, Hura set out to explore the hyped notions of American stereotypes surrounding the American road trip—celebrated in literature by predominantly male, white authors such as John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac. Letting go of the burden of being an outsider in this land; Hura’s images—taken with a Mamiya 6 camera—caress hostile places, vast wetlands and record stores, animals and people.

Following a typed introductory note and hand-drawn maps of his father’s and his own journey along the Mississippi, the book drains into a delta of time, slowness and explorations of the deep American South. An element that consistently ties together Hura’s personal body of work is handwriting. Over a telephonic conversation, the artist reflected on how this acts as a material source for books and as “…a trigger that tweaks meaning and flow in a psychological way when someone looks at it.” The Levee begins with handwritten notes of transcribed texts from father to son. The notes sit alongside six colour images of the mist and rain captured by Hura’s father while he was on the ship. The tone soon changes into a parent’s concerned voice of caution about Hura’s journey by land along the same river. His father writes, “When you get the chance tell me what’s beyond the levee.”

Dedicated to Hura’s father, this is his fifth self-published photobook under the name Ugly Dog (Books). With an edition of 600 copies, this book is a sharp departure (both in content and form) from its predecessor, The Coast (2019), which investigated violence in contemporary India. Instead, it connects back to the Sweet Life trilogy—Life is Elsewhere (2015), A Proposition for Departure (2017) and Look It’s Getting Sunny Outside!!! (2018)—centred around his mother and their dog, Elsa, and focused on Hura’s personal relationships with the world. Compared to his earlier publications however, The Levee is intimately sized. When Hura decided to make a book about his road trip, it became a conscious exploration of the process of bookmaking. He was also influenced by his video work—the way films build, expand and complicate their worlds by adding ideas over time.

In the photobook, the levee acts as a metaphor for a wall that references Trump’s America. Along the river, the artist’s perspective as an outsider shifts in comparison to his father’s. Single images centrally placed between two pages allow for ample space to create storylines. The book’s narrative travels with a slowness and brings in a quietness akin to time spent looking at old photo albums. There are allowances made for moments of reflection. The viewer moves away from any urgency of action into a humming pace of daily routine and the tender presence of nature in life’s struggles.

These images—located in the home of the Blues—pick up on a rhythmic chord. They oscillate between the hardships and the tenderness of human relationships. There is also a constant presence of animals—given the proximity to the river throughout the road trip—as a variety of birds weave through the changing landscape. The black-and-white images timelessly flow into the wide expanse of America’s Dixieland that is instilled with gospel, spiritual beliefs and loneliness. The worn-out signs of neglect in hotel rooms, diners and bars alternate with Hura’s subtle humour to celebrate human life and situate the artist in the work. Images of water appear every now and then to steer the reader through Hura’s journey along the river—on the other side of the levee.

To read more about South Asian representations of the American Road Trip, please click here.

All images from The Levee by Sohrab Hura. Ugly Dog, 2020. Images courtesy of the artist.