Curatorial Practice at the Chennai Photo Biennale

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. We spoke to the curators of the primary shows about their vision and the insights they have acquired in reflecting on the biennale’s provocation.

Mallika Visvanathan (MV): Can you tell us a bit about the theme of this edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale and how it is reflected in the exhibition It’s Time. To See. To Be Seen.?

Shuchi Kapoor: The theme “Why Photograph?” draws primary inspiration from Dayanita Singh's ongoing exploration of photography and her archives during COVID. But the core idea was actually asking the question of ourselves—why do we continue to photograph when the form and purpose of photography has changed? With Instagram and AI coming in, who is engaging with photography today? With reference to It’s Time. To See. To Be Seen., there are significant challenges, such as unequal pay and recognition, that women face in the art world today despite women’s long history in photography—dating back to pioneers like Anna Atkins in the 1820s. So we felt that maybe this is a moment where we can ask the question: Who is photographing and not getting seen?

The show focuses on diversity within the practice, drawing attention to varied perspectives and experiences, especially those of marginalised voices. The exhibition explores themes such as everyday archiving in the work of Nony Singh; the impact of climate crises on the lives of Adivasi and Dalit women in Bhumika Saraswati’s Unequal Heat; people at leisure in Farheen Fatima’s series Meet Me in the Garden, migrant women in Germany in Kiki Streitberger’s work; and Delphine Diallo’s transformation of  the term “Artificial Intelligence” to “Ancestral Intelligence” to counteract the marginalisation of African civilisations in dominant historical narratives. Many artists have also been included as part of Offset Projects' A Shared Room, which contains photobooks, maps and other forms by various photographers and artists working with the book form. 

Also, we had to keep in mind that Chennai is largely a traditional arts city. So, it became important to show works that would resonate beyond the biennale. To engage with our audience, we have made the “Free Feminist Advice” postcards available through a postcard-dispensing mechanism where women from different backgrounds have shared feminist advice. We are also requesting audiences to share the name of a photographer whose work they are curious about. So, these are just a few small interventions through which we hope to address the gender gap that continues to exist within contemporary photography!

MV: Can you tell us a bit about how your journey as an artist has influenced your curatorial vision for Vaanyerum Vizhuthugal as it addresses the question ‘Why Photograph?’

Jaisingh Nageswaran: I have been a practising photographer for the last twenty years. My journey as an artist has influenced how I have looked at curation because I have actively thought about how to present my work. From early on, I would find something missing when I would attend exhibitions. I was able to articulate what was absent after seeing Arthur Jafa’s work (during the Arles Photo Festival in France) as he foregrounded Black histories and experiences that have been erased or misrepresented. I realised that very rarely would there be local artists’ work from Tamil Nadu on display. So perhaps my curatorial intervention began from trying to address this gap within my context, where I have also had to work against many stereotypes and prejudices. Indian histories of photography rarely consider how long it took for photography to become available to marginalised people.

I remember my art teacher, Chandru (Gurusamy) Sir, discussing the photography scene in Tamil Nadu, a state known for its rich history of Sangam literature and classical arts and so on. And I mentioned that, as a photographer, we don’t have any references from our region, and those that are available tend to be colonial. And he told me something I will always remember, he said that it meant we had the freedom to work on what we wanted, as photography would have to start from us. It was a very liberating way of thinking for me with regard to imagining photography. One of the earliest such attempts at foregrounding Tamil identity through photography was when Pa. Ranjith, the filmmaker, invited me to do a photography exhibition for the Vaanam Art Festival. I discovered that curating was a very intuitive process, and this is something that I followed through my exhibition, The Rooting Nails, as part of the Curatorial Intensive South Asia fellowship with Khoj Studios last year. The idea of representing identity rooted in the local Tamil experience is something that I have been consistently exploring over the course of my career.

The show at CPB is a fresh way of introducing Tamil Nadu as it brings together different voices and perspectives. Many of the artists are self-taught photographers who are exhibiting for the first time. I have tried to explore different elements within the Tamil landscape through various media and lens-based practices, so we have artists like Sridhar Balasubramaniyam, who looks at gestures and bodies as they inhabit the land; Osheen Siva reimagines the Tamil soundscape by working with Parai music; Krithika Sriram has reflected on the lives of Dalit women by responding to Bama’s autobiography, Karukku; Arun Karthick is exhibiting an 8mm film that he made; Alina Tiphagne’s work explores what it means to be a queer individual in a traditionally conservative society; while Sathish Kumar has made a double-channel video work for the first time; among others.

As I have mentioned in my curatorial note, we are multiple and complex, and Tamil Nadu has a rich history of resistance in the form of the Dravidian movement and the Dalit movement. The title Vaanyerum Vizhuthugal (Roots That Reach for the Sky) is representative of that because it captures the ability of artists to be grounded by their lived experiences and not limited by them. It is their roots and regional identity that help them reach the skies. In this manner, I imagine Vaanyerum Vizhuthugal as an offering that is the first attempt of its kind—it is like a feast where all of the work is presented together on one plate to be shared by the audience.

MV: In your curatorial note, you have written about how the retrospective opens up infinite possibilities of thinking about queerness and representation not just in the past but also for the future. Could you tell us a little about this with reference to your curatorial vision and what this process revealed to you about the biennale's theme?

Charan Singh: The answer to the question of ‘why photograph?’ is perhaps evident in the way in which Sunil has always used photography as a language of self-discovery. My curatorial inquiry begins with recognising how Sunil’s work speaks to the present, what it can offer to our future, and, most importantly, how it is a testimony of a past time. In our recent history, we have rarely had retrospectives of queer artists, especially in such a public way, in an exhibition like this.

One of the things that Sunil and I discussed a lot was the term ‘retrospective’ and what this term is supposed to mean to an artist in relation to their own practice. We realised that it allows for the possibility for the artist to look at their own oeuvre as well as have a dialogue with people about how to reconfigure the work and find a new language—to situate it in a contemporary setting. And that has happened a lot in this process of curating because I have seen how some of these projects have come into being, from the 1970s till now, and continue to resonate with a wider audience.

For example, we see issues around race, migration and colonialism have been recurring themes from the series Black Experience (1986) to Trespass (1994), to Arrival (2022). Similarly, there are three or four photographs being exhibited from the series Women in Love (2011), which was a fictionalised weekend featuring a lesbian couple in Delhi as they reimagine what their life could be like if queer women had equal rights; but not just that, it also imagines a world where queer couples are able to rent spaces for living together. So, it raises issues that are relevant even today. When we relook at these conversations that emerge from the image, it forms a sense of the continuity of themes that remains true to its politics.

From 1976 to now, there is also a continuity in Sunil’s work itself because he has always prioritised his bond with the community. So, for example, some of the people who appear in the series Mr Malhotra's Party (2007–12), also feature in The New Pre-Raphaelites (2008) as well as in Delhi: Communities of Belonging (2014–16), which Sunil and I made together in Delhi, in fact, this particular work becomes Dissent and Desire that was exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi. There is a solidarity of friendships and network building which happens as a way of worldmaking. This is reflected in the exhibition design at CPB, where we have created a small cosmos of queer lives. All the city-based work is presented on the periphery of the main cluster, because the peripheries are where queer communities originate and are built. And in the middle are the more personal issues like families, both chosen and biological; migration; sexuality; desire; HIV; and there is also a letter from a gay son to his father. Love and Light: A Site of Infinite Possibilities creates another world, so to speak.

MV: Can you talk about the collaborative nature of your curation and how What Makes Me Click! gives us an insight into ‘why photograph’?

Melissa Nolas: Just to contextualise the collaborative nature of our curatorial work—my approach to children's photography is from the perspective of vernacular, everyday photography. My background is in academic research and the Children's Photography Archive originated from ethnographic visual research with children in Athens, Hyderabad and London who took photographs of the things that mattered to them.  

One of the organising principles of the Children’s Photography Archive is the child's gaze, which has not been written about or theorised as much. And that is one of the things that we are trying to do with the archive and one of the points of convergence as well with our work with CPB Prism and the CPB Foundation. Another way that we might think about this exhibition is in terms of childhood publics. The children are putting out their cultural creations in terms of photography, which are often not given space. It is very much a celebration of children as producers of culture.

Again, it is a counter-narrative to what we see all the time in terms of children as consumers of culture and all the risks and dangers that are assumed about that. And the images themselves are very illustrative of the child's gaze. For instance, there are two projects from Gaza that show a very different view of children in Gaza. These are hopeful projects that show the full humanity of being a child in Palestine and offer a different visual narrative from what is predominantly available in the newspapers or social media. So I think the exhibition becomes a direct response to the question ‘Why photograph?’ because it is driven by the children’s curiosity—about themselves, their relationships and their place in the world—and also because it is fun.

Gayatri Nair: And I myself am a photographer and have been in the space of working with children to create photography in the classroom setting with the Chennai Photo Biennale Foundation. So, I think these two points of entry have converged at What Makes Me Click!, where the curation has been a combination of both vernacular, instinctive photography and then also the very stylised, artistic or trained photography by children.  

In terms of creating and working with childhood publics, we have a docent programme where young children will act as guides for the exhibition. In fact, one of the pictures from the Children's Photography Archive is of a dead bird and every time I showed that picture during the docent orientations, all the participants responded to the fact that a child took that image, which shows that children have an interest in the morbid and the bizarre as well. I think we often tend to think of the child's world as very limited, but actually there is a curiosity about the world from a very young age. They have expanded and diverse interests and the camera allows them to express that. You can see that in the way in which what they choose to shoot also changes over time.

Jessica Lim: I have not curated the larger exhibition at the CPB, so I cannot speak to that but I can talk a bit about the process of working with children and looking at their photography over time. Look At This comes from the archive of work created by children as part of the Anjali Photo Workshops, organised by the Angkor Photo Festival. Working with volunteer photographers, the intention was to introduce photography to children in Siem Reap. But the important thing was also just to have fun. The children captured the things around them or their friends or life in Cambodia as they saw it.

While we have not been able to conduct the workshops since COVID, this project gave us an opportunity to return to the photographs that were taken in the workshops and understand a bit about the children’s gaze. We invited a few of the children who participated—all of whom are older now—to go back to these images and choose their favourites for the exhibition. Through these photographs—the earliest of which are perhaps from 2008—you can see the passing of time as children used the cameras to document their everyday lives. You can even see when smartphones are slowly introduced. In this way, the workshops have created an unintentional archive. And it is this archive and the expansive way it makes us think about the children’s gaze that we are exhibiting at What Makes Me Click!

To learn about the previous editions of the Chennai Photo Biennale, revisit Najrin Islam’s conversation with Zishaan Latif on his series The Art of Hatred: The Aftermath of North-East Delhi Riots (2020), Annalisa Mansukhani’s conversation with Arthur Crestani on his series Aranya (2018), Mallika Visvanathan’s conversation with Parvati and Nayantar Nayar on their work “Chicken Run” as part of their project Limits of Change (2021), Ankan Kazi’s conversation with Ahmed Rasel on the series Nocturne (2021) and Sukanya Deb’s essay on Katja Stucke and Oliver Sieber’s video project The Indian Defence (2021). Also watch the episode of In Person featuring Varun Gupta, the founder of the CPB, in which he speaks about audience engagement and the biennale format.