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Juju Bhai Dhakhwa: Keeper of Memories

Arushi Vats Jan 18, 2021

Displayed at the inaugural Photo Kathmandu in 2015, Juju Bhai Dhakhwa’s personal archive of photographs were showcased in the very location they were shot—the streets of Patan and the Dhakhwa home.

Road Trips Project: Redefining the Canon

Jennifer Chowdhry Biswas Feb 17, 2021

Romanticised in modern literature—primarily by white men—as a metaphor for freedom and adventure, road trips are almost a rite of passage for Americans.

Gulf ⇄ South Asia: Unveiling Stories of Migration

Jennifer Chowdhry Biswas Feb 19, 2021

A colour photograph of a tailor from Gujarat working in Dubai, featured on the Instagram handle of Gulf ⇄ South Asia, is accompanied by an excerpt from an interview.

Everyday Images: Geoffrey Batchen's “Vernacular Photographies”

Anisha Baid Feb 25, 2021

Vernacular photography refers to those everyday practices of image-making that occupy the realm of the domestic and the intimate rather than the monumental, historic and avant-garde.

Sohrab Hura: The Historian, the Storyteller and the Idiot Photographer

Ketaki Varma Mar 20, 2021

Photographer Sohrab Hura’s latest exhibition Spill, recently concluded at the Experimenter Gallery in Kolkata, was aptly titled. The expansive exhibition was concerned with excavating Hura’s fifteen years of practice.

Portraits of Care: Revisiting Sanjeev Saith’s Happy Goodnight

Sukanya Baskar Mar 21, 2021

The photographer’s urge manifests in a series of colour photographs—shot on a mobile phone—appearing in an accordion fold that fits into the box.

Charting Intimacies Online: In Conversation with Chandan Gomes

Anisha Baid Mar 24, 2021

People You May Know is a photo essay comprised of images from an online exchange the photographer Chandan Gomes had with a stranger named Tara Banerjee.

Perennial, Plastic Blooms: Zoya Siddiqui’s A distant Place

Arushi Vats Mar 31, 2021

Titled A distant Place, the online showcase of Zoya Siddiqui’s work, curated by Arnika Ahldag and Vaishnavi Kambadur at Museum of Art and Photography, Bengaluru begins with this rumination on the fragmented meanings and locations of “home.”

Documenting Truth: An Interview with Masrat Zahra

Ketaki Varma Apr 01, 2021

Masrat Zahra speaks to Ketaki Varma about what drove her to photojournalism, offering a local, female perspective to Kashmiri narratives and the importance of a continued ethical journalistic practice.

From Landmass to Ocean: Conversations with Sinthujan Varatharajah

Ankan Kazi Apr 20, 2021

Traumatic histories of violently dislocated communities produce fault lines that get enjoined to the public memories of host countries—much as the diverse refugee populations would have confronted the momentous upheavals of Germany on the verge of the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

An Exploration of Intimacy: Chandan Gomes' This World of Dew

Avrati Bhatnagar Apr 30, 2021

Showcased during his visiting fellowship at Duke in 2019, the pop-up exhibit presented images from Chandan Gomes’ photobook titled This World of Dew alongside a diverse collection of photographs captured over a period of time, portraying a wide range of themes and stories.

Landscapes of Loss: Retelling the Marichjhapi Massacre with Soumya Sankar Bose

Annalisa Mansukhani May 30, 2021

Soumya Sankar Bose’s photographic project Where the Birds Never Sing centres on the forgotten massacre of several hundreds of Dalit refugees by the Left Front in West Bengal’s Marichjhapi in 1979.

Nizamuddin at Night: Gauri Gill Photographs Her Neighbourhood

Gulmehar Dhillon May 31, 2021

Gauri Gill, the contemporary Indian photographer, has spent nearly two decades photographing life in the everyday.

Hotel/Home: An Interview with Tenzing Dakpa

Ketaki Varma Jun 09, 2021

Photographer Tenzing Dakpa’s photo series The Hotel, published as a photobook by Steidl in 2020, is a quiet reflection on the multiple realities that form one’s idea of home.

A Space of One’s Own: An Interview with Tenzing Dakpa

Ketaki Varma Jun 10, 2021

In the second part of an ongoing conversation with Ketaki Varma, photographer Tenzing Dakpa unpacks the aesthetic choices that informed the making of his photoseries The Hotel.

Journeying the Mississippi: Sohrab Hura’s The Levee

Veeranganakumari Solanki Jun 17, 2021

On an invitation from American artists and photographers Alec Soth and Jim Goldberg, Sohrab Hura set out on a road trip in April 2016.

Family Threads: Yasmin Jahan Nupur’s Relationship with Practice

Veeranganakumari Solanki Jun 23, 2021

An interdisciplinary artist based in Dhaka, Yasmin Jahan Nupur’s works traverse performance, video, sound, photography, textile, embroidery and drawing.

Archives in Transit: From Analogue to Digital Registers

Najrin Islam Jun 28, 2021

Through his project, this archive has no legs, Srinivas Kuruganti resurrected a personal archive of photographs taken in New York in the 1990s.

A Public Presence: Selected Photo-Documentation in Zubeida Agha’s Archive

Samira Bose Jun 30, 2021

In pioneering modern artist Zubeida Agha’s personal archive, we see photographs that portray Agha’s role and position in the modern art spaces of Pakistan and the international art scene.

Inheriting an Otherhood: Trauma, Domesticity and Labour in Cheryl Mukherji’s Practice

Annalisa Mansukhani Jul 02, 2021

The Last Time (2020) is a work that builds a counter-archive around a specific memory of her mother and her mental illness, structured against the normative format of the family album.

Forensic Time and Territorial Dislocations: Exploring the Trauma of Exile through Google Earth

Najrin Islam Jul 24, 2021

Palestinian filmmaker and media artist Razan AlSalah takes the tool of cartography and counters its imperial roots to reinterpret optical regimes of violence.

Photographing a Chronic Catastrophe: Rearticulating Gaza through Images

Najrin Islam Jul 26, 2021

Palestinian artists are reconstructing Gaza through images that refuse to spectacularise the violence and the archetype of the “helpless refugee”.

In Person: Soumya Sankar Bose on Where the Birds Never Sing

Senjuti Mukherjee Aug 03, 2021

For the fifth episode of In Person, we speak with Soumya Sankar Bose about his second solo show, Where the Birds Never Sing (2017–20) currently on view at Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata.

Siddhartha Ghosh Interviews Sunil Janah: A Translation

Ankan Kazi Aug 04, 2021

The Bengali critic and historian of science and photography, Siddhartha Ghosh interviewed Sunil Janah on 23 March 1986. This is a translated excerpt from the interview.

From Nudity to Obscenity: An Anecdote by Sunil Janah

Ankan Kazi Aug 05, 2021

In this continuing translation of an interview between Sunil Janah and Siddhartha Ghosh, we take a closer look at the eminently frustrating nature of state-bureaucracy with regard to process of intimate artistic creation.

Experiential Extensions: On Somaya Abdelrahman's A Permanent Wound

Najrin Islam Aug 06, 2021

Somaya Abdelrahman’s series, A Permanent Wound, captures the stark reality of Female Genital Mutilation through frames, reflections and veils in monochrome.

Looking, Searching: Visual References in Nilima Sheikh’s Archive

Samira Bose Aug 10, 2021

Nilima Sheikh practises predominantly in the medium of painting, with works on paper, large scrolls and installations, as well as theater set designs and illustrations for children’s books.

Post-Industrial Loneliness: Through the Lens of Cat Sticks

Sukanya Deb Aug 11, 2021

In this interview, Ronny Sen speaks about his film Cat Sticks, its context and raising awareness about addiction.

An Ecological Worldview: Tanzim Wahab on Curation and Education in a Post-Pandemic Era

Jyostna Nambiar Aug 16, 2021

In the fourth episode of ASAP | Cast, we speak to Tanzim Wahab, writer and curator, as he considers the importance of dismantling the power structures between artists and curators in order to create a more inviting art space.

The Clarity of Delirium: Avijit Mukul Kishore’s Squeeze Lime in Your Eye

Ankan Kazi Sep 04, 2021

Kaushik Mukhopadhyay seems to be invested in the performance of outsiderness and eccentricity, but is also equally committed to introducing notes of apocalyptic thinking, obsolescence and unfulfillment in the lives of the objects that he “invents” through finding, reworking and reappropriating.

“Memory’s Images”: A Catalogue of the Self by Mitul Kajaria

Annalisa Mansukhani Sep 06, 2021

Drawing on the photograph as an archival object of memory, Most happenings are beyond expression is a processual work by Mitul Kajaria that explores the conceptualisation and presentation of an archive of the self.

Metonymies and Methodologies: Lina Vincent and Akshay Mahajan Discuss the Goa Familia Project

Annalisa Mansukhani Sep 13, 2021

Spotlighting the family as a repository of memory and layered histories, the evolving Goa Familia project was developed under curator Rahaab Allana during the 2019 Serendipity Arts Festival.

Composing the Familial: Lina Vincent and Akshay Mahajan Discuss the Goa Familia Project

Annalisa Mansukhani Sep 14, 2021

In their interactions with families in Goa, Lina Vincent and Akshay Mahajan have found and foregrounded the linkages between the micro-genealogies of inheritances— such as family names—and larger notions of community, class and religion.

Noise: Resistance in Mithila Jariwala’s Images

Veeranganakumari Solanki Sep 15, 2021

In Mithila Jariwala’s series, Noise (2018–ongoing), the sound evokes the emotions that drive her intimate image-making practice.

The Shining and Other Stories: Images in Fiza Khatri’s Paintings

Veeranganakumari Solanki Sep 17, 2021

Fiza Khatri’s paintings—as portraits of the artist’s life—weave in elements of her experiences with queerness in everyday activities and communities.

Kabuliwallas of Kolkata: Memory, Nostalgia and Performance in the Life of a Community

Ankan Kazi Sep 20, 2021

Moska Najib and Nazes Afroz’s photographic project focuses on the evolving life of a community of travelling merchants in exile—the Kabuliwallas of Kolkata.

Narrating the Tibetan Resistance: The Lhamo Tsering Archive

Mila Samdub Sep 21, 2021

Between 1960 and 1974, a Tibetan guerrilla army operated out of a base in the high-altitude region of Mustang in northern Nepal.

Aspiring to a Nation-State from the Borderlands: Traces of the Personal in the Lhamo Tsering Archive

Mila Samdub Sep 22, 2021

While the previous piece looked at the Lhamo Tsering archive to narrate a lesser-known history of the Tibetan struggle, this post focuses on Lhamo Tsering’s personal history as it is reflected in his archive.

Sometimes Magic Looks Like This: Narrative Threads in Eight Thirty’s Works

Veeranganakumari Solanki Sep 25, 2021

On 2 October 2020, nine women photographers gathered over a Zoom call initiated by Riti Sengupta. This included Adira Thekkuveettil, Divya Cowasji, Kirthana Devdas, Menty Jamir, Mithila Jariwala, Pavithra Ramanujam, Vinita Barretto and Zahra Amiruddin.

Attachments from Time: Lens and Gender in Tayeba Begum Lipi’s Practice

Veeranganakumari Solanki Sep 29, 2021

For Dhaka-based artist, Tayeba Begum Lipi, the various mediums she uses in her expansive practice have been a translation of her lived experiences.

Selfhood and Symbolic Excess: On Bunu Dhungana’s Confrontations

Najrin Islam Oct 01, 2021

Menstruation is a potent taboo in many South Asian communities—a biological imperative rendered “impure” by fact of its occurrence and visibility.

Narrating the Body in/as Data: WOUNDING, an Episode by Amitesh Grover

Annalisa Mansukhani Oct 19, 2021

In 2018, MASH India and the FICA instituted the MASH FICA Award: Supporting New Media Art Practice to promote and encourage critical perspectives on new media art, working to emphasise the expansiveness of the term.

Between Seeing and Being Seen: Still City and Its Portrait of Mumbai

Annalisa Mansukhani Oct 25, 2021

Five student filmmakers proposed this filmic enquiry as a response to a prompt on the city’s streets that invited them to think about spaces of accessibility and inclusivity.

Collective Art-Making: Vivan Sundaram on the Kasauli Art Centre

Ketaki Varma Oct 30, 2021

Set up by artist Vivan Sundaram in a small hill-station called Kasauli in 1976, the Kasauli Art Centre was a cultural and intellectual hub for cross-disciplinary creative practice and collective artistic production.

Cultural (Re)Treats: Vivan Sundaram on Artistic Authorship and the Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation

Ketaki Varma Nov 01, 2021

A retreat, says artist Vivan Sundaram as he reflects on the prolific Kasauli Art Centre (1976–91), carries within it multiple meanings.

Bridging the Distance: Priya Sen and Nicolás Grandi’s Faasla

Mallika Visvanathan Nov 05, 2021

Faasla (2020) emerges as a result of ten years of friendship and collaboration between Priya Sen, a Delhi-based filmmaker, and Nicolás Grandi, an Argentinian transmedia practitioner.

Peripheral Lives: Borderlands by Samarth Mahajan

Niyati Bhat Nov 09, 2021

Directed by Samarth Mahajan, Borderlands bears witness to the experiences of six characters and how they navigate personal, societal and political borders in the everyday.

World-Changing: Disability, Debility and Cinema in We Make Film

Arushi Vats Nov 10, 2021

We Make Film (2021) throws a radical premise at its audience: what if frameworks of knowing and experiencing disability require approaches that exceed accommodationism?

Revolution in a Family Album: Firouzeh Khosrovani’s Radiograph of a Family

Samira Bose Nov 11, 2021

Radiograph of a Family is the filmmaker’s personal foray into the shared lives and experiences of her parents reconstructed through fragments of family photographs and videos from public archives.

Screens of Encounter: Reading Interiorities in Amol K. Patil’s Study Oneself

Annalisa Mansukhani Dec 20, 2021

For artist Amol K. Patil, the body extends, beyond these questions, into a political gesture that asserts the right to occupy space.

Site as Malleable Geography: On Sumakshi Singh’s Mapping the Memory Mandala

Najrin Islam Dec 21, 2021

Screened at the VAICA Festival, Mapping the Memory Mandala reconfigures the familiar axes of experience, as artist Sumakshi Singh actively engineers architecture as a trace.

Swing Time: Ayisha Abraham’s Found Footage Movies and the Memory of a Medium

Ankan Kazi Jan 06, 2022

“Orbits of Desire” focused on the nature of media that informed image-making practices about the body, performances and gender.

Against Forgetting: Family Albums of Disappeared Persons

Sukanya Deb Jan 27, 2022

Siva Sai Jeevanantham accessed case files and photographs of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and state-sponsored torture, along with family photo albums in the highly militarised state of Kashmir.

Smoke and Fire in Nocturne: Ahmed Rasel’s Investigation of Bangladesh’s Brickfields

Ankan Kazi Jan 31, 2022

Ahmed Rasel’s project Nocturne presents a set of evolving perspectives on the complex, messy history of brick kilns in Bangladesh.

Perishable Empires: Re-Historicising the World in Mohini Chandra’s Paradise Lost

Ankan Kazi Feb 01, 2022

Mohini Chandra’s work Paradise Lost—featuring texts, images and performance videos—is currently on display as part of the ongoing edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale.

Nodes of Listening: Reflections on “Artist Encounters” at Colomboscope

Annalisa Mansukhani Feb 12, 2022

The “Artist Encounters” series speaks profoundly of the kinds of acts—of transmission, experimentation, narration—being helmed by the seventh edition of Colomboscope, Language is Migrant.

Imagined Memory: In Conversation with Liz Fernando

Abilaschan Balamuraley Feb 22, 2022

Artist Liz Fernando, a German of Sri Lankan descent, works with archival images and visual memory to explore different stories of migration.

A Voyage in Time: Rajee Samarasinghe’s If I Were Any Further Away I’d Be Closer to Home

Ankan Kazi Feb 25, 2022

Rajee Samarasinghe is a Sri Lankan visual artist and filmmaker who left his island-country in 1998 at the age of ten, when the civil war was underway for about fifteen years already.

Twin Sisters with Cameras: The Photographic Archives of Lina-Bina

Najrin Islam Mar 19, 2022

The exhibition Twin Sisters with Cameras brings together the work of Manobina Roy and Debalina Mazumder, endearingly known by the moniker ‘Lina-Bina’.

The Anglo-Indian Archives: Methodologies for Creating Future History

Veeranganakumari Solanki Mar 28, 2022

The Anglo-Indian Archives was founded by photographers Dileep Prakash, Adira Thekkuveettil and Sheik Mohamed Ishaq in 2018.

Visualising What is Heard: On Nyima D. Bhotia’s Research Practice

Samira Bose Apr 15, 2022

Researcher and anthropologist Nyima Dorjee Bhotia’s long-term, personal archival work explores the Walungnga community of the Upper Tamor Valley in Nepal, where he hails from.

Analogies of Belonging: An Interview with Jasmine Nilani Joseph

Annalisa Mansukhani Apr 23, 2022

In her intricate practice of observation, Jasmine Nilani Joseph draws landscapes of separation that evolve from her personal histories and memories of living in Sri Lanka.

The Artist as Medium: On Himmat Shah’s Acts of Creation

Ankan Kazi Apr 25, 2022

Shah’s work explores the possibilities of producing artistic objects by eradicating one’s subjectivity and rendering it open to the implications of a medium shaped by cultural history.

Memory, Material and the Spectral: In Conversation with Sumakshi Singh

Najrin Islam Apr 26, 2022

Working with and against perspective, depth and illusion, artist Sumakshi Singh’s installations are extensions of queries around material flexibility.

In Person: Live with Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam

Senjuti Mukherjee Apr 30, 2022

Shadow Circus: A Personal Archive of Tibetan Resistance (1957–1974) is a project by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam in collaboration with Natasha Ginwala, currently on view at IIC, Delhi.

In Person: Pritish and Anu Bali on Homemakers

Prabhakar Duwarah May 01, 2022

Homemakers is a collaboration between artist Pritish Bali and his mother Anu Bali, a homemaker currently living and working in Amritsar, Punjab.

Acts of Tracing, Cutting, Isolating: On Nihaal Faizal’s Solo Exhibition ‘Special FX’

Samira Bose May 07, 2022

Bengaluru-based artist Nihaal Faizal grew up in India in the 1990s, the decade following the moment of economic liberalisation in the country as the markets opened up in 1991.

Feminist Geographies: On Indu Antony’s Practice

Najrin Islam May 11, 2022

At the talk "The Power of Art" at IAF 2022, Antony spoke about two of her projects in particular: Cecilia’ed and Namma Katte, with regard to creating a “feminist geography” (Pamela Moss) in practice.

Erasures in Saffron: On Ritesh Sharma’s Jhini Bini Chadariya

Najrin Islam Jun 13, 2022

The film Jhini Bini Chadariya (2021)—or The Brittle Thread—is built on a delicate scaffolding of human stories shaped by socio-political forces that are, in turn, determined by agents of institutional power.

Bani Singh’s Taangh: Triumph, Loss and Longing on a Hockey Pitch

Sujaan Mukherjee Jun 14, 2022

Grahnandan Singh was born in Lyallpur (present-day Faisalabad in Pakistan). His love affair with hockey began during his student days on the iconic Oval Ground of the Government College in Lahore.

Archiving the Photo Studio: Recall and Remembrance in Paper Envelopes

Anuja Mukherjee Jun 18, 2022

Passport-sized photographs have warranted inquiry for their stoic utilitarian malleability. Their travails between honorific and repressive portraiture have generated newer meanings along the way that keep evolving.

History’s Promise: On Suneil Sanzgiri’s At Home But Not At Home

Ankan Kazi Jun 27, 2022

The film attempts to piece together a narrative of identity-formation for the Goan diaspora that has been put through several traumatic upheavals during the mid-twentieth century anti-colonial movements.

Metamorphosising City: Bengaluru’s Public Sector in Cinema

Satyavrat KK Jun 30, 2022

A cursory online search of ‘Bangalore’ would immediately invite a plague of epithets such as ‘Silicon Valley’ and ‘IT Hub,’ or more prosaic ones like ‘Pensioner’s Paradise’ and ‘Garden City’.

Blurred Belonging: In Conversation with Sandra Brewster

Editorial Jul 05, 2022

In this brief interview, Brewster discusses the ways in which notions of symbolism emanate from a broader consideration of “home” or indeed, resettlement.

Image-making and Community: In Conversation with Debmalya Roy Choudhuri

Editorial Jul 06, 2022

Debmalya Roy Choudhuri’s work in Arles brings together photography’s reactive and performative elements in order to animate and realise the contours of self in a world that may seem removed from the everyday.

Town Boy: In Conversation with Sathish Kumar

Editorial Jul 10, 2022

Sathish Kumar’s analogue camera is his constant companion and together they picture the natural and peculiar unfolding of his everyday life. The resulting photo series, Town Boy, has thus been shot over a span of fifteen years.

About/Despite/Besides Love: On Archana Phadke’s Inward Gaze

Najrin Islam Jul 18, 2022

About Love focuses its lens on the Phadke family in all their idiosyncrasies, as the director straddles the role of filmmaker, daughter and sibling during the course of its making for over three years.

Seeing Kashmir as an Outsider: Snow as Metaphor

Jigisha Bhattacharya Jul 19, 2022

Sohrab Hura’s Snow (2015–ongoing) was recently exhibited at Art Basel OVR: 2021. This body of images concerns Kashmir in three phases of the arrival and departure of winter.

Interrupting the Archive: Renluka Maharaj on Indentureship and Historical Revisions

Najrin Islam Jul 26, 2022

Renluka Maharaj talks about using her work to bypass mainstream historiography and counter the imperialist rhetoric of indenture through subversive strategies of excess.

Reclaiming the “Coolie Belle”: On Renluka Maharaj’s Pelting Mangoes

Najrin Islam Jul 28, 2022

On her discovery of French photographer Felix Morin’s portraiture work on the Indo-Caribbean “Coolie Belles”, Maharaj observed signs of staging that were apparent in the repeated use of clothing and jewellery across the postcards, revealing thus several asymmetries of power.

The Roles We Play: Sifting through the Familial in Shared Solitude

Annalisa Mansukhani Aug 23, 2022

Isolated during the COVID crisis, coupled with a set of family emergencies, Khemka and Kokiloo were moved to wonder about what constitutes the familial, the ways it comes into being and, more often than not, how it remains a conjured reiteration of belonging.

Virtual Memories: On Suneil Sanzgiri's Letter From Your Far-off Country

Ankan Kazi Aug 29, 2022

Suneil Sanzgiri’s experimental film essay Letter From Your Far-off Country, assumes the shape of an epistolary meditation and dialogue on the growing threats to Indian democracy over the last few years, and its threatening attempts to eclipse the radical pasts of the country.

Love and its Many Spectres: On Payal Kapadia’s Evocative Tapestries

Najrin Islam Oct 25, 2022

Aesthetics and politics coalesce in Payal Kapadia’s cinema and bears a site of creative re-imagination through the textured use of sound and image.

Turbine Bagh: On Samosa Packets as Blueprints of Dissent

Najrin Islam Oct 26, 2022

The Turbine Bagh project emerged from an urgency to respond to incidents of mass arrests and incarcerations over the last few years in India and Bangladesh, with both countries currently under neo-fascist regimes.

Have Wheels, Will Travel: Places My Chair Likes to Go

Arti Das Jan 18, 2023

The installation Places My Chair Likes To Go, by Goa-based writer and poet Salil Chaturvedi, was placed at the scenic promenade of Goa’s capital city, Panjim, as part of the Serendipity Arts Festival.

Ways Out of Auteurism: The Fate of Filmmaking Collectives

Ankan Kazi Apr 07, 2023

In the popular consciousness of film audiences, the regime of studio-era productions—where the authorship of decision-making was controlled by producers and directors—was followed by the era of auteurism.

At Home in the World: The Archive of Navina Sundaram

Shivani Kasumra Apr 10, 2023

The Fifth Wall archive was launched amidst spirited discussions around decolonisation, public access and archival imaginaries.

A Living Archive: The Fifth Wall and Feminist Archiving Practices

Madhubanti De Apr 12, 2023

Conceptualised by Merle Kröger and Mareike Bernien, along with Navina Sundaram, within the framework of Archive außer sich (Archives Beside Themselves), The Fifth Wall proposes itself as a model for future archival practice.

An Event and Its Recalls: Evocations by The Fifth Wall

Stuti Bhavsar Apr 14, 2023

In a screening of The Fifth Wall held at the Goethe-Institut, Bangalore, Merle Kröger introduced the collection using the axis of media ethics and political potentials by presenting excerpts of films, letters, texts and commentaries.

Space, Placemaking and Belonging: Shaping South Asia

Mallika Visvanathan Apr 26, 2023

Exploring degrees of belonging and placemaking through recollection, resistance and solidarity, the symposium provided a platform for some of the experiences that shape our understanding of South Asia.

In Person: Notations on Time with Sabih Ahmed

Sandhini Poddar and Sabih Ahmed Apr 28, 2023

Notations on Time explores ontological systems that reveal how artists from the region and its diaspora think about aesthetics, existence, remembrance and futurity.

In Search of Justice: In Conversation with Minal Naomi Wickrematunge

Pramodha Weerasekera May 01, 2023

In this conversation, Minal speaks about the ways in which she attempted to understand and capture de Zoysa as a mysterious yet familiar character.

Contesting Identities: In Conversation with Minal Naomi Wickrematunge

Pramodha Weerasekera May 03, 2023

In this conversation, Wickrematunge discusses her series Tambi (2020) about her grand-uncle, Tambimuttu. She also discusses an untitled series made in the same year about Minnette de Silva.

The Medium is the Messiah: Aziz Hazara’s No Starting Point for Revolution

Ankita Ghosh May 15, 2023

With archival prints, aerial videography and tactical use of sound and installation spread out expansively, Hazara presents a visual and aural experience of the everyday in war-torn Afghanistan.

Images in Transit: Bharat Sikka’s Waiting for Midnight

Santasil Mallik Jun 21, 2023

The work constitutes sixty photographs as an ode to the Goan village of Salvador do Mundo taken over the past fifteen years with a vintage Polaroid SX 70, reportedly the world's first instant SLR camera.

Body, Landscape and War: In Conversation with Aziz Hazara

Ankita Ghosh Jun 23, 2023

Bringing the everyday experience of growing up in the middle of war in Afghanistan, interdisciplinary artist Aziz Hazara channels his coming-of-age in such a space.

Revisiting Black July: ’83 A Very Short Film

Pramodha Weerasekera Jun 29, 2023

’83: A Very Short Film (2016), a stop-motion animated film by Sumudu Athukorala, Sumedha Kelegama and Irushi Tennekoon, attempts to capture the historical and emotional nuances of Black July.

This Cup of Spilt Memory: Soumya Sankar Bose’s A Discreet Exit through Darkness

Annalisa Mansukhani Jul 04, 2023

Working with the mediums of moving image and virtual reality, Bose crafts an immersive environment for his viewers, inviting them to “enter” the fugue-like narrative of his past to find and piece together parts of a dream that cannot be grasped in its entirety.

(Dis)Embarking Across Time: A Conversation with Soumya Sankar Bose

Annalisa Mansukhani Jul 05, 2023

In this continuing conversation with Soumya Sankar Bose, the artist discusses the concerns that drive his practice, experimenting with virtual reality (VR) and the exhibition site as it transforms both the viewer and the artist.

Curating the Contemporary Photograph: Tanvi Mishra on Moving Definitions | An Invitation To Re-View

Sukanya Baskar Jul 13, 2023

The exhibition collectively presents a series of strategies that challenge and complicate a monolithic interpretation, highlighting the significant role of personal memory and contextual interpretation as essential lenses for engaging with them.

Intimate Worlds of Film: Matthieu Orléan on Scrapbooking

Mallika Visvanathan Jul 15, 2023

Featuring the filmic scrapbooks of Agnès Varda, Chris Marker, Jim Jarmusch and Pedro Costa among others, the exhibition offers a behind-the-scenes look into the minds of these filmmakers as well as trivia for cinephiles.

Running Away and Hiding: B.V. Karanth at the Movies

Satyavrat KK Jul 28, 2023

B.V Karanth’s expertise lay in Hindi and the various languages of the Dakshina Kannada region, be it Tulu, Konkani, or Kannada. He later became the director of his alma mater, the National School of Drama, taking students to the countryside to acquire various folk traditions by osmosis.

Seventy-Two Ways to Say Memphis: Intimacy and Loneliness in The Eddies

Kshiraja Jul 31, 2023

With its juxtaposition of past and present, aboveground and underground, personal and spatial, The Eddies paints a picture not just of human desire and belonging but of the many different kinds of being.

Images of Illusion: In Conversation with Irushi Tennekoon

Pramodha Weerasekera Aug 07, 2023

In this conversation, Sri Lankan artist, illustrator and filmmaker Irushi Tennekoon delves into her practice, her fascination with stop motion and the manner in which the medium lends itself to creative storytelling.

Come Over for a Drink, Kanchhi: On Communal Histories of Alcohol

Shranup Tandukar Aug 28, 2023

The film presents a nuanced portrayal of economic, social, cultural and religious factors that contribute to alcohol dependence in Nepali communities, especially those living precariously on the razor’s edge of poverty.

The Cycle of Motherhood: On Before You Were My Mother

Shranup Tandukar Aug 30, 2023

The film offers a heart-touching tale of mothers and daughters as they struggle against conflicts, social norms and generational gaps to mend their wounds and understand each other better.

Spatio-Sensorial Belonging: Omer Wasim’s Rites Adrift

Sukanya Deb Sep 08, 2023

Curated by Anushka Rajendran and presented in collaboration with the Shrine Empire gallery, Omer Wasim's Rites Adrift speaks of displacement and ritual.

A Camera Enters the Mind’s Eye: In Conversation with Vijay Sarathy

Radhika Sharma Sep 11, 2023

In this edited conversation, the photographer and visual artist Vijay Sarathy discusses his journey and how the medium allowed him to become a conservator of natural memories.

Looking Inwards to the Future: In Conversation with Sukanya Ghosh

Ankita Ghosh Sep 25, 2023

In this edited excerpt, Sukanya Ghosh enumerates her fascination for all forms of bricolage, new experiments in opticality and the importance of looking inward in order to look forward towards the future.

Images of the Family: Sohail Akbar’s Photo Album

Ankan Kazi Oct 30, 2023

Sohail Akbar’s essay “Modern Sensibilities: An Exploration of the Early History of the Nation through Personal Photographs” (2014), attempts to grapple with national historical accounts through the categories of affect, sensibility and perception, as revealed in his own family albums.

Cycle of Violence: Dominic Sangma’s Rimdogittanga

Santasil Mallik Nov 04, 2023

Through the film, Sangma illustrates his inordinate storytelling aptitude as he traces a tale of entrenched social differences condensing into cultural dispositions under atmospheres of fear.

A Love Letter in Camera: And, Towards Happy Alleys by Sreemoyee Singh

Santasil Mallik Nov 09, 2023

There is an atmospheric playfulness, laughter and some happy accidents in the filmmaker’s interactions with her subjects, which are not devoid of a critical reflection of Iran’s regressive political regime. Such moments manifest briskly in the film.

Constructing Memories: The Mother of All Lies by Asmae El Moudir

Mallika Visvanathan Nov 11, 2023

El Moudir’s film playfully and creatively challenges notions of representation and erasure through the making and unmaking of the world of the family as it comes to terms with its history.

In Person: Clara Kraft Isono on Bawa’s Garden

Arundhati Chauhan Nov 24, 2023

In this edited conversation, Isono discusses her initial exposure to Bawa’s work while she was a student of architecture, the film’s experimental approach to the documentary form, and how the sound design and score contributed to the dream-like experience of static landscape and architecture.

In Person: Shahrukhkhan Chavada and Wafa Refai on Kayo Kayo Colour?

Arundhati Chauhan Nov 27, 2023

In this edited conversation, Chavada and Refai recount their initial research and the process of conceiving the film, the role of a “playful” realist visual language in their work, and the process of crafting a community from the film.

Serendipity Arles Grant 2023-24: Image-Making as Social-Political-Personal Praxis

Arundhati Chauhan Dec 23, 2023

Spanning deeply personal narratives of memory, identity, migration and loss, the second iteration of the Serendipity Arles Grant for 2023-24 reflects the multivalent testimonials to image-making.

Subject, Form and Process: In Conversation with Prasiit Sthapit

Santasil Mallik Jan 09, 2024

In this conversation, Nepali artist Prasiit Sthapit shares how he developed his documentary photography practice by following his curiosity and the processes that contributed to his varied visual language.

Conversations with the City: On Dreams of a Summer Past

Saloni Jaiwal Jan 16, 2024

Lens-based artists Indu Antony, Krishanu Chatterjee and Vivek Muthuramalingam trace episodes of their lives enmeshed with the city of Bengaluru in the recently concluded group exhibition Dreams of a Summer Past at Blueprint12, New Delhi.

Upon Arrival: Image and Narrative in Sunil Gupta’s Come Out

Annalisa Mansukhani Feb 17, 2024

Exhibited at the contemporary art space of Vadehra Art Gallery in Defence Colony, New Delhi, Sunil Gupta’s Come Out brings together a series of black-and-white photographs taken in London between 1985 and 1995. They present a keen lens into the political presence of queerness, framed against the background of Margaret Thatcher’s England.

Reading the Body: In Conversation with Sandeep TK

Mallika Visvanathan Feb 26, 2024

In this edited interview, artist Sandeep TK speaks about how he developed his practice, his approach to photoperformance, engaging with forms of representation and critically examining the world around him.

Platform Proficiency: Influencers to Aspiring Creators

Sagorika Singha Mar 05, 2024

Through his instructional videos, Dimpu Baruah shifts the experience of community empowerment in a neoliberal creator economy where garnering engagement online depends on one’s competence in using the platform.

Collective Medias, Narrative Futures: Reading the Egaro Photo Festival

Ankita Ghosh Apr 06, 2024

Egaro (which translates to eleven in Bengali) spotlights work by eleven artists from the South-Asian region at each edition of the India Art Fair. Over the last few years, Egaro has garnered praise and have made an incredible mark towards visibilizing art practice from north-eastern India.

Other Worlds Within: Arhant Shrestha’s Between Space and Memory

Alfa M. Shakya Apr 11, 2024

Arhant Shrestha’s photographs construct, through an almost childlike wonder and mysticism, an identity of the city he inhabits and what it means to him. This album includes selections from his series Between Space and Memory (2021–), presenting a coming-of-age through the interiority of family and the discovery of a city.

Placing Photography: Reflecting on Recent Curatorial Practices

Anoushkha Prasad May 02, 2024

With conversations in the programme seeking to reflect on contemporary artistic and curation practices, the panel discussion titled Framing Photographic Practice focused on photographic images as a site of producing and preserving histories and cultures while also interrogating the impact of photography on our experiences as we navigate through the ceaseless streaming online landscape.

Legacy Threads: Reading History through the NE India AV Archive

Ankita Ghosh May 14, 2024

Legacy Threads, a group exhibition presented by the Northeast India AV Archive and curated by D. Junisha Khongwir weaves together a story told through family photographs and community archives, and spotlights the vibrant history of the diverse communities based in the region.

The Shedding of Memory: Lament of a Tree by Iqra Tanveer

Shalmali Shetty May 16, 2024

The Pakistani artist and photographer Iqra Tanveer persistently gravitates towards Eastern philosophies around time and collective consciousness, in opposition to the largely Euro-centric approach of perceiving the world through the individual.

Memory-Keeping with Archives: In Conversation with D. Junisha Khongwir

Ankita Ghosh May 24, 2024

In this edited interview, D. Junisha Khongwir, curator and board member at the NE India AV Archive, delves into the foundational ideas of the archive, the unique socio-cultural history of the Northeast Indian communities, and the potential for collective collaborations in sustaining stories from the region through aural and visual cues.

Films Beyond Borders: Priya Naresh’s Small-Time Cinema

Anoushkha Prasad Jun 04, 2024

Priya Naresh's documentary Small-Time Cinema (2022) follows two YouTube filmmaking groups–Assamese Chemistry from Sipajhar in Assam, India, and One Team Media from Hazara Town in Quetta, Pakistan and chronicles their journey of creating films about their own communities and issues, while also preserving their language and complex social and cultural histories.

Fabrications of a City: Maine Dilli Nahin Dekha by Humaira Bilkis

Annalisa Mansukhani Jun 17, 2024

In the short film Maine Dilli Nahin Dekha (I Am Yet To See Delhi, 2015) Dhaka-based independent filmmaker Humaira Bilkis presents the city of Delhi as a set of fleeting moments, imitating most first impressions of the city itself.

Re-Viewing Company Painting: Charan Singh’s Queer Lens

Upasana Das Jun 19, 2024

In his first solo exhibition, The Promise of Beauty, at The Art House, UK, Charan Singh reinterprets company paintings from a queer point of view. Often collaborating with his partner, the photographer Sunil Gupta, Singh works across photography, video and text.

Leavening the Image: Reflections on Weather Report with Tenzing Dakpa

Annalisa Mansukhani Jun 21, 2024

In this edited interview, Tenzing Dakpa unpacks his process of making, his relationship to the medium of photography, and the kinds of mediations it continues to produce for him.

Resonant Shells, Animated Bodies: Natasha Malik’s Film Experiments

Pramodha Weerasekera Jun 24, 2024

Natasha Malik’s experimental film The mirror gazed inward and caught a brief glimpse of another life in an illusion of infinite, in the eye of a dream. (2022) attempts to animate her painting a swim through time, concluded (2022).

The Impulse to Remember: On Vikrant Kano’s In Search of Home

Annalisa Mansukhani Jun 29, 2024

In Search of Home (1939–2021) is a durational work by Delhi-based artist Vikrant Kano that gathers his family’s history, tracing a genealogy of trauma, violence, relocation and displacement back to the event of the Partition and its aftereffects.

In Solitary Confinement: Safe Haven by Gopa Trivedi

Pramodha Weerasekera Jul 02, 2024

Safe Haven is an extension of Gopa Trivedi’s previous work, exploring notions of home, which the artist presents as a state close to solitary confinement in prison, of zero physical or social engagement with the outside world. Home thus becomes a kind of incarceration, which often leads inmates to develop psychological ailments.

Captive Portraits: White Van Stories by Leena Manimekalai

Annalisa Mansukhani Jul 04, 2024

White Van Stories by Leela Manimekalai is unafraid to put history in conversation with the pursuit of truth, and in doing so, it asserts a demand for culpability, engaged spectatorship and respect for the aggrieved and the disappeared.

Music, Night, Life: In Conversation with Shahbano Farid

Upasana Das Jul 10, 2024

In her documentary Karachi at Night (2024), Shahbano Farid ventures into the underground music scene in Karachi, in conversation with musicians and DJs, and uncovers how this world functions even when it becomes difficult to thrive independently, while the fight to sustain the scene must always continue. In the first part of an edited conversation, Farid takes us through her motivations for documenting the nightlife and underground music subcultures in Karachi.

Curating South Asia: On Festivals and Institutions with Natasha Ginwala and Abeer Gupta

Editorial Jul 13, 2024

In this public talk moderated by Arundhati Chauhan, Natasha Ginwala, Artistic Director of Colomboscope, and Abeer Gupta, Curator of Visual Arts at Arthshila, discuss the innovative and collaborative methods pursued in festival organizing.

A City of Sadness: Hou Hsiao-hsien On Post-War Taiwan

Akash Sarraf Jul 15, 2024

A leading figure in the Taiwanese film scene, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films offer a nuanced representation of Taiwan’s complex, sweeping history.

Constructing Archives of Community: Srinivas Kuruganti on 1980s California

Upasana Das Aug 14, 2024

In his photo book Pictures in My Hand of a Boy I Still Resemble (2024), Kuruganti creates a narrative of his time in California with his friends and partners. In a conversation with the author, Kuruganti recalls that at the time of making these images, he was not thinking as a ‘photographer’ and was not considering the images as documentation but a means to relive the past.

Engaging with the Surface: Materiality, Memories and the Digital in Sheetal Mallar’s Braided

Pronita Tripathi Aug 28, 2024

Sheetal Mallar’s series Braided (2023), in many ways, is an exploration of the afterlife of the family album, in the form of the photobook in the digital age.

Canned Laughter: On Abdallah Al-Khatib’s Little Palestine

Ankan Kazi Sep 03, 2024

In several protest scenes featured in Abdallah al-Khatib’s documentary on life at Yarmouk, Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege (2021), people invoke a unity between Syrians and Palestinians—as large parts of both communities have been subjected to recurring traumas born from authoritarian control and global failures to secure their lives and livelihoods.

Against Abstraction: In Conversation with Maen Hammad and Dina Salem

Kamayani Sharma Sep 05, 2024

In this edited conversation with Kamayani Sharma, Palestinian photographers Maen Hammad and Dina Salem speak about Against Abstraction, an activation they initiated with Sari Tarazi and Ahmad Alaqra at Arles from 1 July to 7 July 2024, supported by DoubleDummy Studio.

Modes of Self Reflection: On the Genre-Fluid Essay Film

Anoushka Antonnette Mathews Sep 09, 2024

Beyond Story: Encounters with Essay Films, organised over the weekend of 23–25 August 2024, explored the alternate world of essay films.

Eat Your Mother and Father: A Talk by Yashaswini Raghunandan

Anoushka Antonnette Mathews Sep 11, 2024

Presented as part of Beyond Story: Encounters with Essay Films at the Bangalore International Centre, Bengaluru-based filmmaker Yashaswini Raghunandan’s talk “Eat Your Mother and Father”—the title inspired by John Waters’ film Eat Your Makeup (1966)—discussed the interactions between personal and essay films.

Jejuri: A Reflection in Nine Frames

Ninad Pandit Sep 13, 2024

In an ode to the Khandoba temple at Jejuri, shot on Kodak Vision3 250D film, Ninad Pandit explores the tension between the flaneur, the outsider looking in and the history and significance of the site.

In Person: O.P. Sharma and the Fine Art of Photography with Sukanya Baskar

Editorial Sep 28, 2024

In this episode of In Person, Sukanya Baskar walks us through the exhibition O.P. Sharma and the Fine Art of Photography (1950s-1990s), introducing the viewer to four decades of O.P. Sharma’s photographic practice and the different ways in which his work was crucial for the development of a culture of photography in post-independent India.

Gaza's Endless Silences: On the Politics of Visibility

Asim Rafiqui Oct 05, 2024

In the first of this two-part essay, written in 2009, Asim Rafiqui reflects on his time in Gaza amidst Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09. As a document of his own attempts to grapple with routine scenes of displacement, deaths and burials, the essay sheds light on the historical repetition of violence against Palestinians.

Gaza: Love, Curse

Asim Rafiqui Oct 07, 2024

In the second part of his essay written amidst Israeli bombing of Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09, Asim Rafiqui writes about his encounter with Ismail Ibrahim Abu Eida, an encounter which made him pick up his camera again and tell the stories of Gazans.

Muqaddimah: The War is Not Over Yet

Radhika Oct 11, 2024

In Muqaddimah (2024), Aziz Hazara underscores repetitively, through a series of contradictions, the absurdities of war—the manner in which war detritus appears as recycled technologies of violence, the fragilities of mechanisms of control and waste as imperative to global circuits of capital.

Art in Delay, Hesitation as Film: Maisam Ali’s In Retreat

Sucheta Chakraborty Oct 14, 2024

In Retreat (2024) is an itinerant’s tale. Its unnamed protagonist (Harish Khanna) has been away from his mountainous home in Ladakh for years. Now back in town, we see him almost always on the move—on buses, in cars, on foot. His perpetual state of wandering in the film then becomes a metaphor for his inability to stop; a pause that would have allowed, presumably both in the past and in the present, the possibility of a return home.

On Three Promises: The Palestinians’ Right to a Remembered Presence

Kshiraja Oct 16, 2024

With its non-linear editing of home-video footage tapes and present-day conversations underscored by the timestamps that hallmark the frames, Yousef Srouji’s film Three Promises (2023) reads to the audience like memory in itself, one that is kept hidden away and comes back sometimes in fragments, but all at the same time.

Gaza Lives: Notes from Film Works for Palestine

Santasil Mallik Oct 21, 2024

On 5 September 2024, Film Works for Palestine opened with the fourth edition of the “Gaza Lives” event periodically presented by the Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF), where a line-up of speakers and performers paid tribute to the art and artists of Gaza.

The Archive Activated: Annu Palakunnathu Matthew’s The Answers Take Time

Ankita Ghosh Nov 01, 2024

Annu Palakunnathu Matthew’s retrospective, The Answers Take Time, at Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai from 14 September to 27 October, 2024, brought together a series of the artist’s body of work from nearly three decades of her practice. Curated by Esa Epstein, the exhibition showcased the wide range of experimental work that Matthew has dabbled with throughout her career.

Image as Theory: The Place of the Visual in Writing

Vishal George Nov 13, 2024

James Elkins’ Keynote Address framed the discourse at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s School of Arts and Aesthetics’ Visual Studies postgraduate conference What do Images Want? Art, Identity and Difference. A Professor at the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Elkins’ talk was titled “Relations between Texts and Images” as it foregrounded the dialectic between these two mediums within art writing.

In Person: Chaware by Jhansy Giting Dokgre Marak

Mallika Visvanathan Nov 20, 2024

Jhansy Giting Dokre Marak’s film Chaware (Son-in-Law, 2023) looks at the experience of a young man who moves in to live with his wife’s family after the wedding, following the norms of Garo society. In this episode of In Person, Marak speaks about why she wanted to make this film, her process and research, understanding what it means to be a part of a matrilineal society, the importance of food in all communities, her wish to make films for her own community and her experience of screening the film at DIFF.

In Person: O Seeker by Gavati Wad

Mallika Visvanathan Nov 22, 2024

Gavati Wad’s O Seeker (2024), recently screened at DIFF, was one of the few experimental films at the festival. Shot on 16mm, O Seeker moves through dream and reality as well as science and spirituality with equal ease as an unnamed searcher seeks answers to life and life after death. Wad spoke to us about why she made the film, the experience and wonder of working with analogue film, exploring the poetry of science and the logic of alternative practices as well as treating serious issues with a sense of play.

Islands of Hope An Online Public Talk with Avijit Mukul Kishore

Editorial Nov 24, 2024

On Saturday, 16 November 2024, ASAP | art organised a conversation with filmmaker Avijit Mukul Kishore around themes of home, autobiography and memory, and their inseparable link with political history. Taking examples from his oeuvre spanning across 25 years, Mukul shared multiple forms of engagement with the history of a young nation through the characters in his films, who tend to reference, either directly or obliquely, but always paradoxically, the hopes and violence inherent in the making of India, whether Partition, the “nation-building” period of the 1950s and 60s, or Kashmir.

In Person: Cinema Pe Cinema by Vani Subramanian

Mallika Visvanathan Nov 25, 2024

Vani Subramanian’s Cinema Pe Cinema: The Theatre. The Movies. And Us (2024) seeks to create “a memoryscape” of the Indian film-watching public. In this conversation, Subramanian speaks to us about the notion of the cinematic archive as ever evolving, the need to move beyond nostalgia when thinking of filmic histories, the large infrastructure at work to make and distribute movies, some advice for young filmmakers and her experience of screening the film at DIFF.

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.

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.

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.

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 Power and Representation at the Chennai Photo Biennale

Upasana Das Jan 09, 2025

The Chennai Photo Biennale features artists examining themes of power and representation, including gender, identity and violence. Upasana Das speaks to these artists as they reflect on how their works question traditional power structures and give voice to marginalised perspectives.

My Father: Chronicles of a Dalit Textile Mill Worker in Mumbai

Babasaheb Kambale Jan 13, 2025

Babasaheb Kamble writes the story of his father, whose life reflects a broader narrative of migration, labour and resilience among Dalit textile workers, highlighting their struggles against economic precarity and caste-based discrimination within industrial labour sectors.

Landscape and History at the Chennai Photo Biennale

Kshiraja Jan 15, 2025

The fourth edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB) emphatically platforms artists who, through their practice, seek to challenge dominant narratives in visual representation. Kshiraja interviews three of the CPB's featured artists pursuing these lines of inquiry through their practices by establishing landscapes as a repository of personal and collective histories.

Of Breath and Death: Vigil by Pallavi Paul

Pramodha Weerasekera Jan 17, 2025

Pallavi Paul’s ongoing multidisciplinary series of artworks titled The Wind in Your Body Is Just Visiting, the Breath Will Soon Be Thunder (2023–ongoing) reflects on the power of the unseen—a recurring motif in her decade-long practice. Vigil (2023), a film of nine minutes and twenty-two seconds, starts this series, where a graveyard keeper at a private cemetery near the Maulana Azad Hospital in Delhi reminisces about his work and livelihood during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Land, Development and Change: Amit Machamasi’s Not The Same Anymore

Alfa M. Shakya Jan 23, 2025

Not The Same Anymore (2023) by Amit Machamasi documents the shape-shifting nature of the land around his home. The series explores the intertwining of human stories with the environment by featuring subjects who work in brick kilns, most of whom come from rural parts of Nepal and have moved into the Valley to find work and economic progress. Inanimate objects also find a special storytelling moment in Machamasi’s photographs.

Bodies and Landscapes at the Chennai Photo Biennale

Anoushka Antonnette Mathews Jan 25, 2025

At the Chennai Photo Biennale 2025, photographs become portals of possibilities as they blur the line between the subject and creator. Beyond asking “Why photograph”, we are led to the questions—“Who photographs?” and “who is photographed?”

Poulomi Desai: Race, Community and Image-Making

Upasana Das Feb 03, 2025

Poulomi Desai’s oeuvre moves between the performative and the visual—her first ‘artistic’ experience was at poetry readings, where she was taken by her politically engaged mother, where she did “rant-y” recitations inspired by punk. After moving from Hackney to Harrow—a hotbed of racist activities with the far-right group, the National Front, close to Harrow—she was on the lookout for community.

Noise, Performance and Protest: On Poulomi Desai's Music Practice

Upasana Das Feb 04, 2025

Growing up, Poulomi Desai was surrounded by classical and folk music from India, especially considering the popularity of Ravi Shankar and The Beatles using the sitar in their songs or The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black.” She became involved with post-punk and their political strain with bands like Crass, and then with a Sikh hip-hop group called Hustlers in the 1990s, for whom she designed record covers.

Seeking Hope: Resistance in 'Like Air, I’ll Rise'

Ankita Ghosh Feb 11, 2025

Like Air, I’ll Rise, Experimenter’s last exhibition at Ballygunge Place, takes its name from Maya Angelou’s much-quoted poem as an homage to the writer and activist’s role within the women’s rights movement.

Mental Health and Neurodivergence at Chennai Photo Biennale

Anoushka Antonnette Mathews Feb 13, 2025

At the fourth edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale, photographs become biographies, helping us reflect on mental health and neurodivergence and its connection to the process of image making.

A Shared Place Between Memory and History: Nimi Ravindran’s Exhibition-Performance

Aparna Chivukula Mar 05, 2025

To Forget is to Remember is to Forget, Ravindran’s exhibition-performance which had its tenth iteration last month at the Goethe-Institut in Bengaluru uses video, sound, photo and print installations as well as a storytelling performance to explore personal and public memory.

Fragments of Memory at the Chennai Photo Biennale

Mallika Visvanathan Mar 07, 2025

Given the crucial role photography plays as an aid for memory, it also raises important questions about our engagement with the past, present and future. Artists at the Chennai Photo Biennale reflect on the ways in which memory and meaning are influenced by time and space in their practice.

The Road to Bolpur: Migration and Mourning in Arpan Mukherjee’s “Impermanence”

Radhika Mar 13, 2025

Arpan Mukherjee’s deep exploration of rural-urban migration from Adityapur to Bolpur through photographs, video installation and sound recordings in his ongoing exhibition "Impermanence" (2025), on view at Cymroza Art Gallery, Mumbai from 14 February–15 March 2025, is a poignant visual document of the changes in social structures in rural Bengal in post-independent India.

"Listening to the Whispers": On Memory and Cyclical Time in Arpan Mukherjee’s “Impermanence”

Radhika Mar 17, 2025

In his introspective exhibition Impermanence, which was on view at Cymroza Art Gallery, Mumbai from 14 February–15 March 2025, Arpan Mukherjee confronts his own experience of migration from Adityapur to Bolpur in Birbhum district of West Bengal in the 1980s as a lens through which to tell the tale of socio-cultural changes in post-independent India’s rural spaces.

On Process at the Chennai Photo Biennale

Kamayani Sharma Mar 19, 2025

Animated by the question ‘Why Photograph?’, the fourth edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale draws attention to the histories and fundamentals of the photographic process.

Cycles of Enclosure: Caste, Class and the Unequal Marriage “Market” in Jayant Somalkar’s Sthal

Sucheta Chakraborty Mar 21, 2025

Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, where it won the NETPAC award for best film from the Asia-Pacific region, Jayant Somalkar’s Marathi film Sthal (A Match) develops in between iterations of the ‘kanda-poha’ programme—formal meetings for bride selection that take their name from the popular Maharashtrian snack that is typically served in such situations

It Feels Like Flight: Sarker Protick’s Akash Kalo Megh

Annalisa Mansukhani Mar 24, 2025

Presented by Shrine Empire, Akash Kalo Megh (Shadows in the Sky) was Sarker Protick’s second solo exhibition, on view in conjunction with the India Art Fair. Spanning multiple bodies of work, the exhibition unfolded as a singular, seamless experience—an invitation to see through the artist’s eyes.

Fragmented Memory and Personal History: On Reena Mohan’s ‘Kamlabai’

Akshay Shelar Mar 26, 2025

The film Kamlabai (1992), directed by Reena Mohan, was screened at the NFDC-National Film Archives of India (as a part of the Film Circle screenings) on 8 March 2025. Mohan’s conversations with Kamlabai Gokhale, considered the first lady of Indian cinema, form the basis of this documentary.

On Photographic Archives at the Chennai Photo Biennale

Mallika Visvanathan Mar 28, 2025

Drawing from a range of archival sources, artists and curators participating in the recently concluded Chennai Photo Biennale engage with different imaginations of photographic archives.

Making a Photograph: Pictorialism, Craft and the Legacy of D.R. Mody

Avani Tandon Vieira Mar 29, 2025

Curated by Veerangana Kumari Solanki and conceptualised by Tapan Mody, grandson of D.R. Mody, the exhibition DADA - An Accidental Pictorialist situates the photographer’s work within the tradition of Pictorialism, a movement that privileged principles of beauty and composition over those of record-keeping, approaching the photographic medium as an art form rather than a tool for documentation.