PIX Habitat, 10 Feb. 2014 - PIX

Transcription

LAST DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS:
July 20, 2014 for the Pakistan issue
For more information visit
www.pixquarterly.in or email [email protected]
recovery
piX
lAsT DATe For suBmIssIoNs: 20th August, 2013
is about investigating and engaging with broad and expansive fields of
contemporary photographic practice in India, ranging from the application,
conceptual standing and adaptability of photography to its subjects: its
movement, transmission, appropriation and distinct relation to the allied arts.
THE
IRAN
ISSUE
Also featured as part of the Delhi Photo Festival
partner exhibitions at the Goethe Institut/
Max Mueller Bhavan on September 20th 2013.
On view till October 8th 2013. For further
information visit: www.delhiphotofestival.com
HABITAT:
NATURE, CHARACTER, TERRITORY AND BELONGING
This issue will explore the theme of habitat through
various photographic practices, ranging from reportage
to conceptual art. In a time of massive globalisation and
instant information, how do we define what is our ‘natural’
environment? How do we ensure long-term benefits through
sustainability, from the environmental and from a cultural
point of view?
retrospection around the world, looking at the larger global
picture of natural as well and man made disasters. At a time
when the global population is ever increasing, how do people
adapt to a scarcity of resources?
The term ‘Habitat’ can be further expanded into notions
of identity, migration, assimilation and environment. This
theme comes at a time of grave ecological concern and
LAST DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS: January 20, 2014
THE GENDER ISSUE
Habitat can also be an internal landscape of sorts, exploring
themes of intimacy and belonging.
PIX is about investigating and engaging with broad and expansive fields of contemporary photographic
practice in India, ranging from the application, conceptual standing and adaptability of photography to its
subjects: its movement, transmission, appropriation and distinct relation to the allied arts. The quarterly
seeks not only to present photography in temporal, spatial or historical terms, but also in personal, selfconscious and aesthetic ways.
the interior
A PHOTOGRAPHY QUARTERLY
2013, Digital
A phoTogrAphy quArTerly
A PHOTOgrAPHy quArTerly
A PhoTogrAPhy quArTerLy
From the series
BIT ROT Project
by Valentino Bellini,
Old Seelampur, New Delhi,
PIX is about investigating and engaging with broad and expansive fields of contemporary photography practice,
embody
ranging from the application, conceptual standing and adaptability of photography: its movement, transmission,
appropriation and distinct relation to the allied arts. The quarterly seeks not only to present photography in temporal,
spatial or historical terms, but also in personal, self-conscious and aesthetic ways.
VOLUME 9 . DECEMBER 2013
metamorphoses
The emphasis would therefore be on the images as
a means of understanding the challenging domains
of integration, citizenship and secular cultures in the
present. rather than concentrate only on the fetishistic
notion of gender and sexuality, one may look broadly at
narrative forms of photography as a means of bridging
the idea with the reality of gender. The associated aim
would be to embrace the difference and diversity of
expressions about the role of gender and the rights it
commands, in original, imaginative and multidisciplinary ways.
THE
IRAN
ISSUE
is the theme for the next quarter
volume 8 . AugusT 2013
is about investigating and engaging with broad and expansive fields of contemporary photographic
Untitled by Philippe Calia, Mumbai, 2012, Digital
This issue will explore the theme of gender through
various photographic practices, ranging from reportage to
conceptual art. In dealing with a re-assessment of identity,
this edition emerges at a time when there is a national
and global consciousness about the intricacies of image
making practices, and their constitution of our socio-cultural
environment. This issue then is about photography and the
VOLUME 7 . MARCH 2013
freedom
PIX
LAST DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS: April 15, 2013
For more information on PIX visit
vOluMe 6 . OCTOBer 2012
PiX
voLuMe 5 . MAy 2012
A PHOTOgRAPHy qUARTERLy
vOLUME 4 . FEBRUARy 2012
VOLUME 3 . OCTOBER 2011
with support from
NOTE: In this issue, we would like to concentrate on Iran as
the geographical location where the work is produced or
derived from, however non-Iranian photographers are also
free to submit.
habitat
DECEMBER 2013
VOLUME 2 . MAY 2011
This issue of PIX seeks to identify with the necessary
recuperation period that takes placeafter one is confronted
What may be considered public limitations or taboos often
result in personal hesitations, and at times a kind of political
isolation, which abandons people to the shores of personal
enclosures—their homes or even where they work. This
situation sets uncertain boundaries between ones-self and
‘others’ who constantly redefine their physical, spiritual and
intellectual lives, resulting in a kind of transformation: personal,
social and creative.
The term ‘embody’ can be expanded to notions of
absorbing, translating and uncovering. In order to renew
our understating of gender, this term may be illustrated
not only through events and ‘people photography’ but
also through the abstract character of places, spaces,
objects and situations that have been described in
gendered forms. We would extendedly like to emphasise
the importance of personal histories in the constitution
of artistic expression, and hence this issue would
highlight the significance of regional or local standpoints,
and their connection with a larger cultural meaning.
VOLUME 9
Last date FoR suBMissions: December 15, 2012.
Images could be in the form of documentary, fictional
narratives and art photography which includes still life,
landscape, abstract or figurative form. Photos can be taken
with analog and digital or even cell-phone cameras.
Furthermore, these are only some ways in which the theme
may be interpreted—it is open to the photographers own
personal understanding of title as well, given there is a brief
accompanying note.
formation of gender identities as well as the struggles
that constitute that position.
ma y 2 0 1 4
note: The issue will incorporate works from India and Japan
primarily, with a portion dedicated to works from other S.
Asian countries.
Derived from a cinema and screen-writing term which is used
to separate outdoor and indoor scenes, the notion may be read
in terms of specialised knowledge about a particular situation
that is revealed when we explore a deeper connection with a
personal or social situation. The emphasis is also on the double
life people lead as a result of societal pressure—from local or
international forces, which render their lives a hidden story,
a personal diary of events. The real challenge perhaps lies in
the paradoxical compulsions of a public outlook and personal
belief—living as a part of society yet being alone in ones
discovery of the self.
The gender issue
embody: manifesT, personalise, reveal and inTegraTe
trespass
At a thematic or pictorial level such an issue could address
aspects of identity-change, even physical changes in
architecture or landscape, through reportage or indeed
conceptual ways of addressing this notion. It is left to the
photographers interpretation given there is a legitimate
reason provided.
SPECIAL ISSUE ON IRAN
THE INTERIOR
PRIVACY, IDENTITY, DUALITY
embody
AugusT 2013
The early part of the 21st century has been dominated
by acts of confrontation, resistance and resolution in the
political, cultural as well as ecological sphere. Constantly in
motion these essential aspects of life go through cyclical
processes whereby the manner in which we engage with
difficult situations needs to be creatively and constructively
approached. Hence, if we perceive this moment as one that
is inspired by a surge of change, transformation and cultural
evolution, we could consider that devastating circumstances
that cause alterations in lifeare eventually followed by a time
of healing and recovery….a time that is essential in order to
move on.
She prefers me like this by Azadeh Akhlaghi
Tehran, 2008
Digital
volume 8
&
piX is about investigating and engaging with broad and expansive fields of contemporary photographic
From the ongoing series Bou by Tanvi Mishra, Puri, Orissa, February 2011, Digital
THE SRI LANKA ISSUE
A phoTogrAphy quArTerly
LAST DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS: July 15, 2012.
The Interior
OCTOBer 2012
imaginaries: exploring photo art
with support from
NOTE: In this issue, we would like to concentrate on
Sri Lanka as the geographical location where the work
is produced or derived from, however non-Sri Lankan
photographers are also free to submit.
MAy 2012
with support from
PIX
seeks not only to present photography in temporal, spatial or historical terms, but also in personal,
self-conscious and aesthetic ways.
Metamorphoses: With our growing emphasis on
photography from South Asia, PIX is happy to announce a
Special Issue dedicated to photography from Sri Lanka.
The notion of change and transition have been evident not
only in the social and political history of Sri Lanka but also
its enlarging cultural life, seen in the more recent Colombo
Biennale. In this spirit, we seek photographers to explore
the idea of ‘change’ that they might have experienced in
with an altercation, whether social, political, ecological or
cultural. The gradual change that occurs in an individual’s
or indeed in family life in the aftermath of a drastically
transformative event, also expresses the diverse ways in
which peopleas well asspaces experience, and adjust to
life, often expressing their adaptability. This might occur
in their interactions with one another or indeed the places
they live or work in. How then can photography express
this moment, this passage and growth from one state of
being into another? Are changes always for the better?
or is there indeed ‘recovery’ at all? On the other hand,
the idea of‘recovery’, can also be interpreted as a form of
an‘accumulation’, a gathering of what really matters at the
end, and hence a percolation of life’s essential impulses that
are navigated and often change course, ideally for the better,
but at times quite unexpectedly otherwise.
VOLUME 7 MARCH 2013
www.pixquarterly.in
or email: [email protected]
Yannik Willing, Galle Face Green, Colombo, 2011,
6x7 medium format
RecoveRy: cuRe, ReconstRuction, Rescue, and RestoRation
vOluMe 6
April 1, 2012
recovery
In a broader sense, we are trying to present
contemporary practices of photographers, and
identify the cultural exchanges in
photography. Is there a common ground of
reference? Professionals, enthusiasts and amateurs
are free to apply.
their own photo practice, as well as the world around them,
creating not only a document, but perhaps even a personal
history, or an encounter. The notion itself can extend to ideas
of an evolving format in photo-practice that they might have
witnessed or explored over time.
For instance, the images could include portraits,
landscapes, architecture, objects, and even abstract
forms given the images are submitted as a body of work.
Additionally, we would be interested in persons using the
camera in unconventional ways, or trying to create an
alternative visual language through their own practice.
Therefore ‘Metamorphoses’ can also be about creating
a parallel form of consciousness about a subject by the
photographer. For example, the images may be in the form
of documentary photography, a fictional narrative, or what
one may consider ‘art photography’, with constructive
liberties taken using digital collage or even a digital
transformation/manipulation of the photograph.
We encourage photographers to work individually or even
as a group/team/collective if they wish to do so.
These are only some ways in which the theme may be
interpreted—it is open to the photographers’ personal
understanding of the title as well, given there is a brief
accompanying note.
voLuMe 5
MAY 2011
outsider
picture making as well, that challenge and open up
our points of view.
These are only some ways in which the theme may
be interpreted – it is open to the photographers
own personal understanding of title as well, given
there is a brief accompanying note.
FEBRUARy 2012
and
Freedom: LIberty, PrIvILege, Power,
abandon, oPPortunIty
Freedom: As much a philosophy, an ethics of
engagement, as an ‘act’, the notion of freedom
seeks to engage a series of photographs that
may highlight how a circumstance, a point of
view or even an idea may liberate an individual,
an artist, the society, or even a perspective. How
does freedom —or the lack of it —impact our
everyday lives? The visualisation of ‘freedom’ may
be expressed through actions, through notions
of identity, through forms of resistance, or even
through the power of an image - a portrait that
may break the norms of convention, a landscape
that may have a hidden history, or a candid shot
that can alter ones notion of reality. It can be about
understanding the self within the larger context of
society —what are the notions that drive us, that
make us rage against known barriers? What makes
us free to be who we are? A sense of ‘freedom’,
may therefore be conceived not only in social,
political, or cultural ways but aesthetic formats of
metamorphoses
Special iSSue ON SRi laNKa: MetaMORphOSeS
diveRSity, diStORtiON, gROwth, upheaval, ReNewal
A PHOTOgrAPHy quArTerly
December 10, 2011.
www.pixquarterly.in
or
email [email protected]
FEROZSHAH KOTLA YAWN
by Kaushik Ramaswamy
Digital
vOLUME 4
with support from
In a broader sense, we are trying to present
contemporary practices of photographers in
India, and identify the cultural exchanges in
photography. Is there a common ground of
reference? Professionals, enthusiasts and
amateurs are free to apply.
OCTOBER 2011
Primary sponsor
photography? The operative modes of
understanding culture today lie in the zones of
exile, secularism, globalization, and capitalism.
Are these larger ideas within which images
operate?
A PhoTogrAPhy quArTerLy
‘Trespass’ is a familiar notion, as we witness or
experience barriers of identity and geography
being crossed almost on a daily basis. The
experience can be of people, yourself, as well
as spaces as they encroach and break away,
from one phase or idea of life into another. In
today’s context it can mean changing a way of
interpreting and understanding the self, as new
frontiers are sought to recreate identity. Which
are those moments that allow us to perceive or
observe a change in the way we have perceived
the world? What has been a life-changing
image or moment in time?
freedom
A PHOTOgRAPHy qUARTERLy
TRESPASS: BREACH, DEFY,
SCANDALIZE, INTERVENE
AND BREAK FREE
VOLUME 3
VOLUME 2
Diptych 1, from the series Under
Construction by Arunima Singh
Ahmedabad, 2010
6x6 colour negative
From the psychological point of view, it could
represent, instances of anxiety, fetish. If we
seek to define our current predicament as
viewers, spectators and photographers in a
trans-national world of cultural exchange,
which are the new frontiers being created by
To download the complete Call for Submissions
visit www.pixquarterly.in
or email [email protected]
suburbia
outsider
work. Additionally, we would be interested in
persons using the camera in unconventional
ways, or trying to create an alternative visual
language through their own practice. Therefore
‘Imaginaries’ can also be about creating
a parallel form of consciousness about a
subject by the photographer. For example, the
images may be in the form of documentary
photography, a fictional narrative, or what
one may consider ‘art photography’, with
constructive liberties taken using digital
collage or even a digital transformation/
manipulation of the photograph. We encourage
photographers to work individually or even as a
group/team/collective if they wish to do so.
‘IMAGINARIES’: EXPLORING PHOTO ART
‘Imaginaries’, the theme title for the third issue
of PIX is about thinking about the ‘creation’ of
images, where photographers may reflect, reorient, fashion and form hybrid compositions
as an art practice. ‘Imaginaries’ may even be
defined in terms of the unfamiliar, unusual,
transient and temporary.
Today, we are viewers of art in a transnational
arena of cultural production, and so which
are the new frontiers being created and
transcended by photography as an art form?
The submission may seek to respond to this
proposition. Images also manage to create dual
realities, at times, disparate ones. Indeed, in a
world where the image matters as much as the
‘message’, it is important to question whether
there is a new materiality in photography.
The images could include portraits, landscapes,
architecture, objects, and even abstract forms
given the images are submitted as a body of
trespass
Mridul Batra/Lucida. From the
series, Wildlife – A Prolepsis.
Mumbai 2010. Medium format
6 x 6 colour negative.
imaginaries
that of fate or fortune, the issue speculates a renewed
understanding of the future of photo-practice within
a country that has witnessed a swiftly evolving ‘state’,
leading to a range of activity around personal expression
and social awareness. With an eye to history, as well as
to the contemporary, the issue invites an assortment
of submissions in order to embrace the present surfeit
of visuals. Seeking to explore beyond our common
geographical ties, we invite works that could reconstruct
an understanding of image-based practices in Pakistan,
acknowledging ‘difference’ and ‘diversity’ as a means of
creative departure, striving to unhinge stereotypes often
created through pictures in the public domain.
We therefore propose some searching questions about
practice and reception such as: what does photography
here tell us of ideologically constructed visual tropes, the
processes of nation-building, modernisation and cultural
heritage as well as the local/global politics of representation?
And how does this practice help in developing an identity?
volume 1 0
For the forthcoming Special Issue on Pakistan, PIX would
like to explore the evolving relationship between artpractice, documentary tropes and citizenship—its craving
of a unique spirit, mannerism and means of expression
through photography.
Pakistan’s place in South Asia is as ‘strategic’, as it is
about an inquiry into its regional character, conditioned by
changing regimes as well as a current generation that is
exposed to transformations in communication modes and
technology. Consequently, the future of practice-oriented
media like photography will also change how and what
one sees within its socio-political and cultural sphere—
through reportage and artistic developments of known
and unknown practitioners. We endorse the notion that
photography as a means of the everyday has led, globally,
to an unprecedented expansion of a democratised way of
scrutinising and analysing places, events and ideas, often in
location specific ways.
With a general emphasis on the sentiment of ‘kismet’—
habitat
volume 1 0 . M A Y 2 0 1 4
A p h oto g rap h y q uarterl y
From the series American Dream
by Nariman Ansari,
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
July, 2011
Digital
A p h oto g rap h y q uarterl y
Forthcoming: Special Issue on Pakistan
habitat
Issue 10
EDITORIAL
1Guest Writer’s Note: The Sanity of Habitation • Kaiwan Mehta
GEMS (Global E-Waste Management and
Services), Kancheepuram District,
Tamil Nadu, March 2013,
Digital
3
From the Editor: Photography’s Continent • Rahaab Allana
6
Photograph(er)s’ Habitat • Philippe Calia
8
Where the Wild Things Aren’t • Tanvi Mishra
Grouped and Individual Features
10 Deepa Kamath
Supported by
Text © the authors.
Photographs © the photographers.
All rights reserved. No part of
this publication may be reproduced
in any form without prior permission.
PIX is a proprietorship of Rahaab Allana.
All issues of PIX may be downloaded at
www.pixquarterly.in
14 Pargol E.Naloo
Text by Nandita Jaishankar
Editorial: Nandita Jaishankar
Front Cover: From the series Migrant Sex
Workers, by Paolo Patrizi
2009 (ongoing), Rome
Medium format
Text by Hemant Sareen
76 Amirtharaj Stephen
24 Srinivas Kuruganti
84 Karthik Subramanian
32 Thomas Vanden Driessche
38 Shovan Gandhi
46 Special Feature:
Alessandro Ciccarelli
Design and Layout: Arati Devasher,
www.aratidevasher.com
Printing: Naveen Printers,
www.naveenprinters.com
72 Creature Comforts
18 Devansh Jhaveri
Editor: Rahaab Allana
Photo editorial: Tanvi Mishra,
Philippe Calia,
Kaushik Ramaswamy
67 Special Feature:
Asmita Parelkar
54 Anshika Varma
59 The Memory Bird
Poem by Nandita Jaishankar
60 Antonio Martinelli
91Sundarbans
Poem by Priya Sarukkai Chabria
92 Rasel Chowdhury
96 Angry River
Text by Trisha Gupta
98 Special Feature:
Paolo Patrizi
104 Tuhin Subhra Mondal
105 Where I Live
Text by Ruchir Joshi
Photographers
Valentino Bellini is a freelance
documentary photographer. He graduated
in photography in 2010 at the CFP R. Bauer.
From 2011 to 2013, he worked at LINKE.
lab. His works have been exhibited at Ivrea
Photo Festival, Delhi Photo Festival and at
the Rizhoma House Gallery (Palermo) in a
solo exhibition titled Working Souls.
Rasel Chowdhury is a documentary
photographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
He completed his graduation in
photography from Pathshala, South Asian
Media Academy (Dhaka) in 2012. With a
special interest in social issues, Rasel has
produced several photo stories including
Desperate Urbanization and Railway
Longings, among others.
Alessandro Ciccarelli works between
Rome and Berlin. He explores the
connections between video and photo with
the group Visuelle-Kiste. He created the
editorial photo project Monkey Photo and
a series of house installations Interno. He is
part of OcchiRossi, an independent photo
festival in Rome, now in its fourth edition.
He participated in Naked City Project, a
collective photographic mission on Rome.
Thomas Vanden Driessche is currently a
freelance photographer and a member of the
Out of Focus group. He was nominated for
the Picturetank agency. He works for several
international newspapers. His work has
received a double nomination to the Pictet
Prize 2013 and was among the finalists of
the Bourse du talent and the Manuel Rivera
Ortiz Grant for documentary photography.
His work has been displayed recently in
international festivals around Europe.
Pargol E.Naloo is a photographer
and artist based in Tehran, Iran. She has
participated in several photography
festivals in Iran and has been part of 6 group
exhibitions.
Shovan Gandhi’s work is drawn from
his background in fine art photography,
new media and painting. He works with a
spectrum of production techniques and
formats, ranging from pinhole cameras
to conventional digital media. His work
has appeared in Vogue, Motherland, Marie
Claire, BBC, Platform, Caravan Magazine, Elle,
Frontline and Grazia. He lives and works in
New Delhi, India.
Devansh Jhaveri dabbles in varied genres
of photography, such as documentary,
travel, fashion, performing arts and
portraiture. His work has been a regular
feature in magazines such as Femina and
Asian Photography, among others. Jhaveri’s
photographs have been a part of several
group exhibitions. Trespass was his first solo
exhibition which was exhibited in Delhi and
Mumbai in 2012. www.devanshjhaveri.com
Deepa Kamath yearns for solace in nature.
Her tendency to photograph comes from a
wish to preserve and hold on to the beauty
around her. She worked on two farms
in Bombay and Goa last year, learning
and practising sustainable farming. Srinivas Kuruganti is a documentary
photographer now working as Photo Editor
of Caravan Magazine.
Antonio Martinelli is a photographer
who has worked extensively in India,
Europe and Japan, and whose work has
been featured in numerous magazines and
books. He has also produced exhibitions
on architectural and geographical subjects.
His most recent book Lucknow in the Mirror
of Time (Filigranes Editions, 2011) is also the
catalogue of an exhibition held in 2011 at
the Musée Guimet in Paris.
Tuhin SubHra Mondal is a freelance
photographer based in Kolkata who has
been practising documentary photography
for a year and a half.
Asmita Parelkar is a documentary
photographer currently based in India. She
completed her BFA in Applied Arts from
the JJ school of Arts, Mumbai in 2006. In
2010, she went to study documentary
photography and photojournalism at
International Center of Photography, New
York.
Paolo Patrizi is a documentary
photographer whose subjects range from
portraiture and feature projects to social
issues and politics. His focus is always on
the human and social aspects of a story. He
began his career in London working as an
assistant to other professionals. While doing
some freelance assignments for British
magazines and design groups, he started to
develop individual projects of his own. His
work is featured in leading publications and
exhibited and awarded internationally.
Amirtharaj Stephen is a Tamil
photographer based in Bangalore, India.
Karthik Subramanian studied
photography at the University of
Westminster, UK. He is currently based in
Chennai.
Anshika Varma is a freelance
documentary photographer based in New
Delhi, India.
Writers
Priya Sarukkai Chabria is a poet,
novelist, essayist and translator with
five published books. Bombay/Mumbai:
Immersions with photographs by Christopher
Taylor is her most recent. Awarded by the
Indian Government for her Outstanding
Contribution to Literature her works have
been published or are forthcoming in
Adelphiana, Asymptote, Soundings, South
Asian Review, Caravan Magazine, and The
British Journal of Literary Translation, The
Literary Review, to name just a few. She edits
Poetry at Sangam. www.priyawriting.com
Trisha Gupta writes on cinema,
books, travel and art for Mumbai Mirror,
BLInk, Sunday Guardian, Outlook Traveller
and Caravan Magazine, among others.
Though she’ll never stop being a culturetype, over the last year she has begun the
long, slow process of opening her eyes to
the natural world. She also wishes she could
write more about photography.
Ruchir Joshi is a documentary film-maker,
novelist and journalist. His films include the
award-winning films Eleven Miles and Tales
from Planet Kolkata. His first novel, The Last
Jet-Engine Laugh (English) was published to
critical acclaim in 2001. He is now working
on his second novel, which is set in Calcutta
in the Second World War. Kaiwan Mehta is a theorist and critic in
the fields of visual culture, architecture and
city studies. Since March 2012 he has been
the Managing Editor of Domus India—the
architecture, design and visual culture
magazine. He is currently also Director
Academic Affairs at ISDI (Indian School of
Design and Innovation), Parsons Mumbai.
He has developed, and teaches courses in
Art, Criticism and Theory at Jnanapravaha
(Mumbai) as well as Architecture Theory (at
Arbour: Research Initiatives in Architecture). In
September 2013 he was elected as the Jury
Chairman at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in
Germany for the fellowship cycle 2015-17. Hemant Sareen is a New Delhi-based
independent writer and artist. He was
a contributor and Associate Editor at
the Hong Kong-based ArtAsiaPacific. His
photographic work has been published
both in India and abroad, including
in Punctum (2011). He held his first solo
exhibition, ZooPoetics in 2013.
The Sanity of Habitation
The home is not private space as always imagined,
Kaiwan Mehta, Guest Writer
but a site where the human habitation shapes up
to living and breathing, generating a constellation
The ‘home’ terrain
of sorts, one that is not yet measured, or classified
The ‘home’ is a siting for human habitation.
in all its depths and details. Habitation is a
The ‘home’ is often seen as the safe inside in a
geography of ‘insides’; a labyrinth of interiors
landscape that is public, urban, and in may ways
where we enter sparingly and only on few
unprotected; however the tropes by which we
occasions, but we often imagine that the few
reproduce the imagination, at times the illusion
interiors we know and see and experience are
of home, even if imaginary and incoherent to
what all interiors in civilisation and human lives
the normative definition within the landscape of
are about—this is a false condition of knowing.
habitation, is the very locus for charting lives in
We do not know the city, as long as we do not know
the terrain of an incomprehensible civilisation.
the homes that build it, make it, and produce it!
From the series Bit Rot Project
by Valentino Bellini. The average
pay of an electric waste disposal
worker in the suburbs of Old
Seelampur in New Delhi is about
INR 2-3 thousand per month.
March 2013, Digital
E d i t o r i a l | 1
The home is a civilisation-producing sliver for the
a map you often see on paper—is up for ‘viewing
every inside is also the cauldron exposed to human
collation of human needs to group and reproduce
only’ in the zooming aeriel view—it is the ‘object’
life and the incomprehensibility and vagaries of
the individual. The home unfolds in the landscape
of beauty and disgust. It is there only as a view,
civilisation. The inside geography at some point
of habitation, the home connects with uncharted
not a terrain you walk and breathe in, negotiate
fuses into, and becomes part of the exterior
space of nature; for the home to withdraw is for
and live through. Habitation is distanced as much
terrain of spaces in the geography of habitation.
civilisation to disintegrate. The often-imagined
as the home encloses within itself. In the city, the
The terrain of living is opened inside-out in this
binary—inside/outside or private/public, in the
window is now only an opening, not an umbilical
map of interior spaces—the home, the whore
discourse around the home and the city/civilisation
extension into the city. The rising tower in the
house, the gay bar, the public toilet, the hidden
is a mis-calculation of how we understand
city distances through compounds and gateways
smoke joint, the gambler’s corner, the shanty on
geographies of human existence and the spaces of
—not gateways that announce entry, but those
the urban outskirts, cooking for a household in
human occupation. Human civilisation lives in its
that deny the continuity of habitation. The high
the nook of a pavement, and the neighbourhood
large plethora of homes as much as it grows and
rise compound in its attempt at being ‘safe’ (read
by night. In civilised imaginations of habitations,
breathes in its streets and monuments. To imagine
sanitised against the corrupt and polluted city)
sanity is maintained in the order of public and
nature or monuments as carved out and protected
and secure, self-sufficient (refusing to interact
exclusively for particular forms of consumption and
with the street) distances the home from the city
activities is a way of segregating the landscape of
not just through height, but by the architecture
civilisation unnaturally; the dwelling of a migrant
of a psychology that refuses the ground as a space
sex worker in the marshy grassland and the
for life-activities and as a level for engendering
private, inside and outside, home and the street
Trucks filled with metallic
materials sourced from electric
and electronic waste arrive at
this foundry daily. Wagah Town,
Pakistan. February, 2013, Digital
—with all binaries accorded their protocols of
behaviour and existence. But, what we see by day
is only a veil for what unfolds in the night; what
the outside tells us is only a story that hides the
monument to death and love are all the continuous
insides, filled with lives that are denied an everyday
terrain of life-activities.
existence, often ‘insides’ that can only wish for an
The home is often imagined as a space of
interiority. This everyday struggle between ‘home’
familiarity, while the world outside is a collection
distance. As the height rises, the ground
and the production of civilisation creates habitats
of strangers. The home is not a unit defined on
disintegrates—as the home secures itself, the
and accommodations that are repositories of
a planner’s logbook or the realtor’s dream book,
city crumbles, it disintegrates! The landscape of
disgust, denial and repulsion. The insecure outside,
but the niche of sanity you hope to carve out in a
habitation produces a self-image that divorces the
the flamboyant agora, cannot manage the inside
landscape of incomprehensibility and a crowd of
slivers and clusters, the make-shifts of civilisation
that challenges the sanctity of a governed public.
strangers. The conception of home as a primary
that are indeed the ingredients of a tumultuous
The inside (or the inside denied its interiority)
unit, a basic unit that multiplies to develop
terrain in which history and lives imagine and hope
reveals an anxious civilisation, one that is either
the city, is a misreading of the relationship
to find a stable residence.
too exposed or too hidden, one that struggles with
that individual lives share with the history of
an understanding of life that cannot accommodate
civilisation, and habitats that are prepared stages
Collecting the landscape
of production.
If the landscape of habitation drawn out by human
any garb of vanity and sanity.
lives and endeavours is a labyrinth of ‘insides’,
Photography’s Continent
Intrigues of urbanity
then what would its map as a labyrinth of ‘insides’
Rahaab Allana, Editor
The monumentality of civilisation and the
look like? Can we draw a map of human habitats
production of its habitation on earth is often
the interesting view-terrain. The aerial view of
comprehension distances the terrain of habitation.
The city is crawling, brightly lit, an apparent
geometry of built and un-built spaces and objects,
2 | P I X
One of the young boys working
in Agbobloshie in Accra (Ghana)
made the landfill his home;
he has built a shelter made of
different types of scraps and
waste. April 2012, Digital
collecting and measuring all the interiors and their
A documentary film by Nishtha Jain titled Calcutta:
flows? How many insides will we find exposed to
City of Photos (2005) depicts a haunting sequence:
the outside, undefined in any enclosure or shell
a photograph of the famine-stricken people of
whatsoever? Every inside may be a labyrinth of
Madras in 1876-78, taken by W.W.Hooper (1837-
rooms and spaces, stairways and corridors, but
1912) is digitally morphed in-front of a modern-
day painted backdrop. For me, this sequence
From the series Bit Rot Project by Valentino Bellini
A small shop specialising in the repair of electric
and electronic devices inside a shopping mall in
Karachi, Pakistan. February, 2013. Digital
A woman takes apart imported electronic devices in
Shahdara, Lahore. February 2013, Digital
4 | P I X
Over the last 10 issues of PIX, we have been
affirms a potent message about the history of
privy to an evolving, kaleidoscopic motion of
‘seeing’, a satirical, if not macabre recalling of
contemporary photography—how a single
a ground reality, poised in-front of the colonial
image mirrors, duplicates and proliferates: forms
imagination of the orient, thereby creating a
of avant-garde modernism with production for
surface friction. Similarly, social media in our
its own sake; visual semioticians whose changing
present is also at the forefront of the montaging
language is distilled through political or social
of personal lives, inscribed onto the surface of a
events and extremely subjective contours of
digital platform, wherein a shifting identity can
lives captured, re-created, and narrativised.
be managed at will, and at times, inadvertently so.
The confounded nature of images as fact, has
Does location matter and does photography, or any
led to a reimagining of their ‘lives’ and hence a
art practice redraft our continental ties or beliefs?
re-looking at the facts. In an extended, tangible
Two young men during a break in a warehouse full of
old cathode ray tube monitors in Old Seelampur, New
Delhi, India. March 2013, Digital
Two workers of SIMS Recycling Solutions, the global
leader in the recovery of electronic and electric wastes
for reuse and recycling. Chennai, Tamil Nadu, March
2013. Digital
An electronic and electrical
waste collection area on the
outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan.
February 2013, Digital
sense, by physically turning the camera from a
Photograph(er)s’ Habitat
and adding to the noise of the billions of pictures
vertical to a horizontal position, from the portrait
Philippe Calia
uploaded everyday on the web? The ‘digital age’ is
to the habitat or landscape, perhaps the effort to
often pointed out as the main proponent of this
broaden a field of vision and capture more, has an
I recently rediscovered the classic book, Camera
inundation, though it was even before this major
allegorical resonance with the infinite scope of
Indica, in which I found an expression that,
technological shift that Susan Sontag lamented
visuals, and their ability to change the nature of
surprisingly, resonated with the current thematic
the over-consumption of photographs, ending
what is desired—how much we want to see.
of PIX. In the very first lines, visual anthropologist
her famous essay with a plea for an ‘ecology of
Christopher Pinney charts his endeavour as an
images.’3 One could thus answer her cautionary
phantasm, a fabrication, and less a recollection
attempt to fathom the ‘complex changing ecology
message by conceiving the photographic realm as
of the mystifying qualities of the pastoral or
of photography.’1 As this book is subtitled as ‘The
an ecosystem, that is, a community of living and
the developing, disparity-ridden cityscape—and
Social Life of Indian Photographs,’ his motives
non-living organisms resting primarily on diversity,
present the indexical, if not tensile relationship
begin to unravel. The author attempts to study
sustainability and preservation. The function of
between concepts and their manifestations as
the plausible interactions between photographs
the photographer would be central to this system,
‘picture’. The resounding aestheticisation, if not
against their environment(s) or social and cultural
embodying parallel and overlapping existences—on
fetishisation of the image is an indication that
landscapes.
the one hand, as a photographer-author, producing
A reference to nature in this issue is more a
not everything can be seen on its own terms,
Whereas the anthropological and sociological
original work, re-investigating dominant narratives
but through several removes or dislocations.
outlook on photography would deploy the
and mainstream visual lexicons; on the other,
Another vista of scopic regimes on this growing
classificatory tools of ‘description’ and ‘analysis’, an
as a photographer-editor, appropriating existing
landmass of images allows for an investigation
‘ecological’ viewpoint would be more prescriptive
material (primarily his/her own) and giving it new
of uncharted alleys…private histories and their
and normative. The word ‘ecology’ itself bears that
life through the art of montage.
social memories. And hence, while there are
ambivalence—a study of the relationship between
competing geographical metaphors at play, so too
organisms and their physical surroundings also
and poetic avant-garde symbol would appear to
is a sense of impermanence, a shaft that separates
encompasses an ecological, political movement
manifest a modernist understanding of the role
photography from preservation…revealing aspects
seeking to protect the environment. At a time when
of the artist—a unique voice standing out from
of decay, the fading of alliances, erased kinships
many practitioners and commentators predict
the hubbub—the latter places the photographer
if not actual landscapes—abstracted from the
the looming death of photography,2 it might be
in a less instinctive territory, where the crucial
one who cannot read images. ‘But must we not also
people that struggle to live on and through it.
advisable to re-infuse the medium with a sense of
act becomes more about choosing than creating,
count as illiterate the photographer who cannot read
purpose and renewed meaning.
about archiving, researching and curating. It is
his own pictures?’ Benjamin subtly adds in his Short
from this perspective that one has to acknowledge
History of Photography.3 Earlier in the text, Benjamin
The epitaph of such a world could eventually
be read by forging a new equation with time
While the former figure as a kind of political
The main question that arises then is the
It is a truism that the illiterate of our times is the
and space, locale and identity. Vivid social and
one of the responsibility of the photographer to
‘From Here On’, a manifesto of the Rencontres
quotes an interesting comparison between different
cultural textures emanating from the novelty of
add new images in a world which is otherwise
d’Arles, 2011 edition—as a desire to filtrate,
instruments of visual art and those of music.4 While
detachment, or the acute voice of aspiration…
decried as visually inundated. As artists, how can
recycle and selectively but carefully preserve that
the painter’s stroke would be closer to the violinist’s
how to change, or just survive in a continent, over-
our practice be beneficial to an environment of
constant flux of visuals. This document not only
‘creat[ing]’ of his or her note, the photographer’s
exposed.
photography which is witnessing this abrupt
sets the conceptual underpinnings of a new trend
‘clicking’ would rather resemble the motion of a
of contemporary photographic practices (which
pianist, who simply ‘strikes’ the key to produce a
gained popularity first through the Google Street
note. This analogy can then encourage us to imagine
exponential growth? How do we avoid polluting
1 Christopher Pinney, Camera Indica (1997) p.8
2 “The Death of Photography: Are Camera Phones
Destroying an Artform?” Stuart Jeffries, The
Guardian, Friday 13 December 2013,
6 | P I X
From Here On, a manifesto
presented during the Arles
2011 edition written by the
five curators of the exhibition:
Clément Chéroux,
Joan Fontcuberta, Erik Kassels,
Martin Parr & Joachim Schmid
View projects of Michael Wolf and Jon Rafman),
but it also impulsively acts as a reminder for the
photographer-author that his or her work is only
halfway done after shooting.
3 Walter Benjamin (1931), ‘A Short History of
Photography’, p.25 in Screen (1972) 13 (1):5-26
4 Ibid, p.19
a photographic series as a musical composition—a
Coalfields Limited (NCL), a subsidiary of Coal India,
careful combination of rhythm, melody and timbre
one of the largest producers of this mineral in Asia,
unfolding in time. In this way, the photographer
is based here. With its close proximity to the Rihand
becomes a composer. Which means that, even
Dam, Singrauli is an ideal location for setting up
though it is essential for any artist to share his
high-capacity power plants. The region, termed as
work, specifically in order to see if the message gets
the ‘Energy Capital of India’ generates over 12%
conveyed and to avoid overt self-references and
of the country’s power. It is the location for the
artistic solipsism, in the end a photographer can also
National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), as well
be his or her own (and last) editor.
as thermal power plants run by Essar, Reliance and
For this reason, I would also like to define the
Hindalco to name a few. activity of photography in today’s visual ecosystem
With coal power, however, comes the attendant
as something close to ‘sampling chaos.’ Be it
environmental damage. Less than half of the 3,458
methodical cataloging or a serendipitous choice,
square kilometres of coal fields remains under
from some archives of the past century to today’s
forest cover. Hundred-year-old forests have been
FlickR, or even, in a stricter sense, from the tumult
cut down in large-scale deforestation operations,
of the real, as Paul Graham states about images
causing not only the repeated displacement of
‘(…) when you dance with life itself—when you
the tribal populations, but also the annihilation
5
form the meaningless world into photographs, then
of wildlife that existed in these forests. Tigers
form those photographs into a meaningful world.’
once freely roamed these lands; locals now report
6
In spite of a dialectical process of producing and
only occasional sightings as their habitats are
editing images by the photographer, what Sontag
systematically destroyed. feared was that the viewer had been lost along the
But the National Thermal Power Corporation
way. Perhaps the inundation of pictures can destroy
(NTPC), one of the many companies operating in
the dykes of assimilation, and yield a de-sensitised,
the region, cannot be accused of ignoring the area’s
numbed spectator. She writes, ‘Cameras are the
biological diversity. In one park in the NTPC town-
antidote and the disease, a means of appropriating
ship in Singrauli, the authorities have set up a unique
reality and a means of making it obsolete.’ Taking
zoo. Unique because its specimens are made of
a lead from the literary icon, recent studies in
concrete and plastic—artificial animals confined, for
psychology have revealed that our ability to
some reason, in cages. Is it perhaps to avoid further
remember an event or a moment is actually impaired
human encroachment or vandalism? There is the
by our propensity to take pictures of it. This comes
tiger, the leopard, the elephant—inanimate captives
as a caustic epilogue to Sontag’s warning about the
of the men who drove them away.
7
shifting power of photography in todays practice-
There is also a roaring Tyrannosaurus rex,
oriented setting.
possibly symbolising the dinosaur-like status
Where the Wild Things
Aren’t
5 Georges Didi-Huberman, ‘ Sampling Chaos’, Études
photographiques, No 27, p. 49
6 Paul Graham, Presentation at first MoMA
Photography Forum, February 2010
7 Susan Sontag, Sur la Photographie (1973), p.243
8 | P I X
Tanvi Mishra
In Singrauli, the air hangs thick with fumes of
sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and other chemicals.
Chimneys dotting the landscape spew dark grey
From the series
Where The Wild Things Aren’t
by Tanvi Mishra
Singrauli, Uttar Pradesh, 2013
Digital
smoke and the surrounding hills wear a barren
of coal production in the energy-strapped 21st
look. The Singrauli region, on the border
century. The irony of replacing natural habitats with
of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh is
plastic artifacts is a bizarre if not cruel indication
prominent on the industrial map of India for
of all that has been lost. It is a gloomy reminder of
its abundance—5.2 billion tonnes of proven
the estranged relationship that now exists between
reserves—of power grade coal. National
man and the wild.
Deepa Kamath
Motifs of Solitude
All images from the series
Motifs of Solitude,
Mumbai-Goa, 2013
B&w film
10 | P I X
Isolating an aspect of flora or fauna on a neutral
The connection shared by science and art has
background, such an image was often painted by
since been forged as an alliance and as a mode
European and Indian painters alike in the 18th and
of contrast and connection between what we
19th century in order to study it as a specimen
appreciate as an aesthetic language and the
as well as celebrate its beauty as an object of art.
symbiotic relationship between the world of form
P I X | 11
and the function of beings.
With this, I was brought to question whether
are equally matched by its interwoven circuitry,
we can measure the potency of photography’s
its channels of information, distribution, fluidity,
role in any space, or the range of its implications
structure, behaviour, transition and evolution. In
without knowing how it has been conditioned
this equation, I feel that we are lost as a species,
through time. What do we actually see in them
forever distanced from what sustains us at a very
and what have their predecessors been, both as
primal level. Perhaps it is because of ‘The Human
an artistic gesture and a documentary form?
Zoo’ syndrome—being taken out of the natural
After hearing a talk by permaculturalist Clea
environment or compelled to function under the
Chandmal on ecology and farming, I volunteered
commands of ‘unnatura’l forces (including religion,
on two farms to observe where our food comes
social norms, institutions, etc) that supposedly
from and how it is grown. It changed the impact
structure our society. The intuitive propensity
of words and phrases like ‘green’, ‘eco-friendly’,
of images to capture a phenomena devoid of
‘recycle waste’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘development’,
man-made ‘rules’ or systems, allows me to focus
which are actually rooted in what we perceive the
on nature’s intricate and complex schemes and
function of nature to be.
formations—interwined arrangements and
The simplicity in how nature performs its
12 | P I X
function, with the aid of the sun, water and soil
frameworks that draw me in the more I look.
P I X | 13
Pargol E.Naloo
Temporary
Text by Nandita Jaishankar
Viewing Pargol’s work is almost like sitting in
shuffling on a screen is about coping with a
a train compartment, watching the landscape
culture of accumulation, one in which we are
documentary of different types of trees which
trace that looks almost like a halo or a shadow of
hurtle past, with each hazy window revealing a
looking at points of convergence between ideas
grow all over Iran, says Pargol, who is from the
reality documented on paper.” For Pargol, it is not
different vista. Devoid of people, the landscape
and images. This gentle composure of swiftly
same country. According to the artist, “Though
as much about conceptual art as it is about the
is suffused with a sense of stillness, nearly
observed trees, almost like sculpted profiles, is
the photographs are digitally shot, I always print
documentary form. The title Temporary, I imagine,
desolate, but captivating enough to want to
proof then of how life continually approaches
on hand made paper.” For Pargol, the idea of the
could also refer to transience at so many levels—
keep looking. There is a burst of birds in flight;
and exits. And this is where the notion of a truth
transformation of trees to paper is not lost, and in
of time, of landscapes and nature, of mutation.
a lone majestic tree standing watch over a
suffers a little, the depiction confuses a little,
fact, is integral to her project, Temporary. There is
And as we too exist for only a moment in the
cemetery; trees swaying in what seems like an
its claim to the subject deflects a little—a claim
an inherent irony in drawing attention to the very
fullness of time, and though many aspects of life
impending storm, and a close up of tangled
seen here within a composition of trajectories:
notion of the value of trees through photographs
are fleeting, there is comfort in having a palpable
roots, changing the viewer’s perspective
the moment of viewing, the site of the image
printed on hand made paper.
visual reminder of all things that have passed
completely.
and then the image as a trace. They are all then,
In an extended sense, looking at images
the portrait of that event.
14 | P I X
The series, shot over five years, is actually a
Temporary,
2009 (ongoing), Iran
Digital
The tactile is important to Pargol. “I was always
which have faded over time, and all that is left is a
before us, taking us with them.
inspired by old photographs … I love the colours
P I X | 15
16 | P I X
P I X | 17
Devansh Jhaveri
Hollywood
A slum spread across 2.5 square km exists in a posh
in making statues of Ganesha all year round,
area of Ahmedabad. Originally called Gulbai Tekra,
culminating in a celebration day when people
it is sarcastically referred to as ‘Hollywood’ by
purchase and eventually submerge them in the
the locals. The community living here is involved
Sabarmati River.
18 | P I X
All images from the series Hollywood,
Ahmedabad, 2012-13
Digital
Power nap, 2012
The tailor’s shop, 2013
The zoo, 2013
P I X | 19
The statues are always found in different stages
objects, poised all year round as passersby look
The statues have become a part of the
actually harks to an impending limitation. It is
of production and instead of being accommodated
on, almost nonchalantly at the street ahead, with
natural backdrop of the people, completely
an industry which is under constant threat of
in houses or storage spaces, they become the very
a tunnel vision towards their destination. But
consuming their time before the festival and
being banned, particularly after concerns were
walls, barriers and partitions of the community, an
here, one may think of the photographer as a
the sale. Erratic juxtapositions of the mass
raised over the detrimental use of the plaster of
integrated part of their living conditions. An entire
cosmetologist, in which, skilled in the adornment
produced deity and our consumer culture are
Paris. Furthermore, the expansion of a growing
mini village of 1000 people exists around these
of the scene, the subject is made more emphatic
inordinately made, perhaps creating a tension
metropolis has resulted in the destruction of
statues in the midst of a booming metropolis. The
while standing out in a crowded arena. The image
or even humour within the image, a contrast
large portions of the slum. In the shadow of
same statues, which are worshipped and bought
of Ganeshas in this space, almost a stereotype of
wherein the tusked god is always presiding
shopping centres and corporate offices, some of
for enormous amounts of money for one particular
the area, is more about a metaphorical connection
over people and places, somewhat ignored. On
the places photographed are now the only relics
occasion, can be found in this area as animated
with time and an analytical connection with space.
the other hand, the sheer plenitude of statues
of what ‘Hollywood’ once looked like.
20 | P I X
Siesta, 2013
The kids’ hospital, 2013
P I X | 21
All images from the series Hollywood,
Ahmedabad, 2012-13
Digital
Marley, 2013
Facing page:
The egg shop, 2012
Night out, 2013
22 | P I X
P I X | 23
Patancheru in Andhra Pradesh has
one of the largest industrial estates
in India covering over 400 hectares
August 10, 2006, Patancheru,
Andhra Pradesh
Digital
24 | P I X
Effluents from factories are dumped
into the Nakavagu stream instead of
being sent to the effluent treatment
plant for processing. Arsenic and
cadmium among other chemicals
in the effluents have damaged the
crops and poisoned the livestock.
December 11, 2007, Patancheru,
Andhra Pradesh
Digital
Srinivas
Kuruganti
Ankleshwar/Patancheru/Orissa
Different forms of photography have played
concentrated a lot on war photography.
a pivotal role in shaping my trajectory. The
Unreasonable Behaviour: An Autobiography
first book I read on photography was by Don
was published in 2002, and it made me think
McCullin, the British photojournalist who
about what kind of work I really wanted to do,
P I X | 25
Environmental agencies have found
that in this area arsenic levels from
effluents are as high as 700 parts
per billion (PPB, as against the
permissible 10 PPB recommended by
the World Health Organization).
August 10, 2006, Patancheru,
Andhra Pradesh
Digital
26 | P I X
Facing page clockwise:
The Vapi Waste Effluent
Management Company reroutes
unprocessed effluents from the Vapi
industrial area into the Damanganga
River.
January 26, 2008, Vapi, Gujarat
Digital
Sukinda Valley in Orissa state
contains almost all of India’s
chromium ore deposits. The waste
from processing the ore is dumped
into abandoned quarries.
December 4, 2010, Sukinda Orissa
Digital
Lanjigarh town in Orissa is rich in
Bauxite, an aluminium ore.
March 2, 2010, Lanjigarh, Orissa
Digital
P I X | 27
as a photographer in the field, trying to capture
view into engineering, and the contrast created
beyond the image, suggesting that perhaps
covering over 400 hectares. Over 4,000 factories
transition or perhaps something transitory.
by industries as a backdrop to homes.
the cultural history of the photograph is a little
in these two regions produce much of the world’s
under exposed, because the threads that connect
supply of generic drugs, pesticides, fertilizers
Before I even got into environmental
Another photographer whose work really
photography, I saw the work of American
inspired me was Mark Morrisroe, the performance
practices need to be asked some initial questions
and dyes. Toxic effluents from these plants have
photographer, Mitch Epstein, who also
photographer who shot the punk scene in the
before the moment of arrival can be reached.
polluted the rivers and ground water.
documented aspects of cinema relating to India
1970s in Boston. The intimacy that he portrays
and its diaspora in Missisipi Masala and even
in his pictures and his ability to accordingly
Salaam Bombay. One of his images has stayed
evoke his own life, struck a chord. Subsequently,
with me: suburban homes with a coal power
I have pondered whether one is trying to affect
plant in the background, (Amos Coal Power Plant,
the public perception of photography? Can it
Raymond City, West Virginia. 2004) a hyper-real
be informed in ways that compel us to look
28 | P I X
The waste, toxic fly ash and water
from the Vedanta refinery in
Lanjigarh town is dumped into open
pits, which have villages in close
proximity.
Digital
Arriving at the current project, and having
Toxic pond in Lanjigarh town.
Digital
The second series covers Orissa, a state
worked on it for the last 5 years, I felt that a
that leads the country in the production
photographer might well be a chronicler of
of chromite, bauxite and iron ore. Mining
change. This project looks at Ankleshwar in
operations here have cleared swathes of forest
Gujarat and Patancheru in Andhra Pradesh, which
and farmland and displaced tribal communities,
are among the largest industrial estates in Asia,
who for centuries have relied on the land for
P I X | 29
Stray dogs that live in the area carry
the same colour on their skin as the
dye factory workers.
January 16, 2008, Ankleshwar, Gujarat
Digital
Local residents look at the waste
dumped in their village by steel
rolling mills.
Andhra Pradesh
Digital
30 | P I X
Dye factory workers leaving work in
the early morning.
January 17, 2008, Ankleshwar, Gujarat
Digital
The effluents from the factories have
seeped into the groundwater and
into agricultural fields.
Andhra Pradesh,
Digital
their livelihood and culture.
I used to always work in black and white
Steel rolling mills here dump their
waste in neighbouring villages where
residents sift through the waste to
collect scrap metal to sell back to
the mills.
Andhra Pradesh
Digital
friend once told me that a story is not just
about what is at the centre but rather on the
but that changed after I saw the work of Luc
periphery. The community is therefore as or
Delahaye (Winterreise, 2000), the French
more important than the actual industrial
practitioner whose large scale images depict
site. But, at the end of the day, you can
social change and detachment. only make people aware through your
Taking a departure from this, I feel my work
photographs, and you have no control on how
documents the lives of people residing in
people may view the images, or what action
zones of unregulated industry. A photographer
they may take, if any.
P I X | 31
Thomas Vanden
Driessche
Jharia: The Burning City
I have heard that eskimos have dozens of
project also asks some initial questions about
different words to describe the subtle nuances
photography, i.e. if it changes what we see and
of white. When I arrived in Jharia, I couldn’t help
who we are, can it change what we do? If such
but wonder the same about the inhabitants of
a thought about images brings to life an unsure
the largest mining area in India. Could the people
reality or fate, perhaps photography too ponders
here have developed a special vocabulary for all
an uncertainty: can it challenge, document, alter
the nuances of black? In this region, they use
and redefine space and intellectual traffic?
the Hindi word, Kalaheera, which means ‘black
diamond’ when referring to coal. However, the
32 | P I X
Roughly 400,000 live in Jharia, a town near
Dhanbad, the economic capital of Jharkhand
Jharia, Jharkhand
June 2009 & February 2012
Medium format
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state. The lunar-like soil hasn’t produced
prepared to leave. Most of the population makes
vegetation for a long time and won’t be doing
a living from coal. The environment is hostile, but
so any time soon. But the danger for local
miners are guaranteed a job and sometimes even
inhabitants does not come from the black dust
accommodation. It is considered stable and honest
that is permanently floating through their
to work for private mining companies, but is not
environment. The danger lies literally deeper,
the safest or most beneficial as a majority go into
spreading under their feet. Bad management of
the pits and quarries owned by the government.
the mines has led to uncontrolled underground
The least fortunate of them, mine coal with their
fires. For more than a century, millions of tonnes
bare hands in illegal reserves run by the local mafia.
of coal have burnt up. It is equivalent to a volcano
In Jharia, people are prepared to die at the
growing under Jharia. Toxic vapours spread
bottom of a pit in order to provide for their
into the atmosphere, the ground is sinking and
family, but not to be shot dead by the mafia,
houses are starting to crack. Sometimes, the road
whom they often equate with the govenment.
spontaneously bursts into flames.
From time to time, when there are too many
The imminent sense of a human disaster is real
murders, the anger of the local population
and daunting. The Indian government is aware
explodes onto the street and, amazingly, the
of the problem, but unable to allocate enough
slogans and insults are not aimed at the criminals,
funds to relocate the population at dire risk. And
but at the police and local authorities, accused of
on the other hand, in Jharia, the population is not
having abandoned the town to its ill fate.
36 | P I X
Jharia, Jharkhand
June 2009 & February 2012
Medium format
P I X | 37
All images from the series Alang
Alang, Gujarat, 2007-09
Digital & 35 mm film
Shovan Gandhi
Alang
Objects are created for a purpose but occupy
a part of the natural environment that causes
tension between them and their surroundings.
Man-made superstructures are utilitarian and
have a history attached to them. A ship for
example, carries within itself many memories and
stories. It marks a route from its making to its
travels. Against the backdrop of the vast ocean,
a ship reminds us of its inconsequential size but
the moment it reaches a shore, its mammoth
scale is realised against the backdrop of a beach.
38 | P I X
P I X | 39
This is Alang, a town on the coast of Gujarat
where the landscape is dominated, defined
and demographically shaped by its industrial
and the act of re-appropriation of an object is a
violent yet regenerative one.
Ships come to die at Alang and to be reborn
function of ship-breaking. It is the last journey
as something else. The photographs contain
of each ship that sets its course for Alang; it has
impressions of a prevailing socio-cultural
performed its function and is decommissioned.
ecosystem in which unimportant men can
Once a dysfunctional object like a ship becomes
aggregate and die so that dead ships live. In the
incongruent to its habitat, it is reduced to its
death of a superstructure, there is melancholy,
materiality. This shifting of material, economies
violence and rebirth.
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All images from the series Terra di Concordia
Fiumicino (Rome), 2012-13
Medium format, pinhole film
“No Porto.” The area allocated for the new port should
have made it the largest tourist harbour in the region
Special Feature
Alessandro Ciccarelli
Terra di Concordia (Land of Concord)
This is an Italian story of speculation, looking at
Initially, my thoughts meandered around an
the complexities of urban redevelopment and its
investigation of the changes made by man in
interface with ecology.
a natural space. With the identification of this
The notion that Homo sapiens are the
site as the place for the construction of the new
only living species that can change their
port of Rome, the whole area would have been
surroundings so radically, that they too become
transformed by a wave of cement if it had not been
‘foreign’ in the very habitat they created, is the
seized by the judiciary. However, from the seizure
intention of this exercise. The extreme, if not
till today, the area experienced a kind of temporal
dramatic environmental implications of such
suspension due to the state of abandonment. The
transformations creates a paradox of living
spatial co-ordinate was defined by the presence of
without creating the resources to survive. This
what Gilles Clément, the French entomologist and
leads to an identity shift, a visual redefinition of
writer, defines as ‘waste spaces’ (délaissé)—the
how we condition and represent space.
inter-relation between nature and culture in a site-
Porto di Concordia (Concord Port) is a
harbour under construction in Fiumicino,
specific manner.
Time dilatation is the keyphrase of this work,
Rome, possibly the largest tourist harbour
wherein the harbour is staged, with the use
of Lazio region. It is an infrastructure that
of a pinhole camera: in this way the 8 minute
includes 105 acres of soil, a massive port
long exposures create a connection between
made of cement—130,000 cubic metres no
experience, history and its mottled relationship
less—in an area that, according to the Basin
with place. My act of looking or observing has
State Authority, is at high hydrogeological
developed into contemplation over time, so the
risk. In November 2012, the harbour area was
ruins of cement and iron become alternative
impounded by the magistrates due to structural
landscapes and the idea of ‘beauty’ is redefined as
deficiencies. Now the area is abandoned.
an ironic alteration in the aesthetics of taste.
46 | P I X
P I X | 47
In an extended sense, perhaps photography
duplicate image were compared to clones:
and decay are interlinked because there is
perhaps photography can be conceived as
transformation—the surface aesthetics of a
a futuristic way of always addressing a past
photograph have changed from the print to
practice, ‘prior media’ as Marshall McLuhan, the
the digital, but if digital photography and the
Canadian philosopher would call it. When one
48 | P I X
The iron fronts lie abandoned
at the new port
According to the new harbour
project, along with the port there
should have been a wide range
of business services created to
redevelop the area.
considers how images fade in ones mind, there is
looking at its own history in a moment when
a term used by neurologists to describe the affect
the memory of the past 10 years is already
of amnesia…the selective removing of images
subsumed by the production of images in a
and the random display of events in our mind as
contemporary environment? Is the idea of
‘off topic verbosity’. Is this why photography is
change, always for the better?
P I X | 49
An old disused restaurant
on the beach
50 | P I X
The fence blocking of the port area.
Currently, the beach is inaccessible
Abandoned cabins of the
beach resort
The zone adjacent to the new
port is important because of the
rare species of flora and prairie
vegetation growing on it
The area of the seized
construction site
P I X | 51
The ruins of cement and iron become
a new landscape
52 | P I X
Bilancioni, the palafittes for fishing
in Fiumicino, one of which was
occupied and refitted by an antiharbour committee
P I X | 53
Anshika Varma
What is Home?
Images are conversational exercises. Some of
once created my safety net now lay around me in
them exist as fragments of a whole while others
tatters, and I too, it seemed, was shorn apart.
tell an entire narrative. A few years ago, I lost my
Lost in a haze of self-doubt, I searched for
sense of home. A relationship that had had the
meaning in my life, for some evidence of how I
appearance of being immortal, forever existent,
had made the decisions that had led me to this
unraveled at the seams. The threads that had
place. Nobody could tell me how I had become the
54 | P I X
‘me’ that felt most like myself.
What is Home?
Digital, 35mm film and
medium format negative
Cambodia, 2010
I started to think about the idea of home,
homes, through my camera I found imprinted a
new meaning, refreshing ideas to which I could
thinking about the fact that I was looking for a
anchor myself; the spaces we use to shield
physical and mental space in which I felt like the
ourselves, and the spaces that we sometimes use
best version of myself.
to escape to ourselves. The more I asked people
Speaking to those around me about their
around me, the more I realised that home is
P I X | 55
hardly a building or a structure alone. ‘Home’ is
moments of erasure. In the sensitivities and
over the past several years, the developments in
managed by all the other senses? The image takes
the search for our own selves.
arrangements of other people’s homes, I began to
photography have shown us a tangible connection
precedence, as an instinct for its endurance above
find my own again. In finding their homes, I found
between analog thinking and digital practice?
touch, sound and taste.
which we can claim to belong to, the space that
my connection with the world. And I hope this
Are there any such divides that are relevant in
can claim us as much as we can claim it?
journey will take me to where I belong.
a world filled with personal images? Or perhaps
have a stronger effect, then every image is
at a more physical level, does the primacy of an
testimony to the knowledge that there is always
image have to do with the fact that it is proven
more to desire from what is out there and
that humans have a neurological condition where
demand from ones-self as a voyeur, a surveyor, an
the image has the most lasting effect…than those
observer or a witness to change. Aren’t we always looking to find that space
This collection of photographs is a glimpse
of the homes of people I have come across in
my travels. The series tries to document the
connections made with fragments as well as
56 | P I X
*
Editor’s Note
In order to make a connection between a
sentiment and an image, we may ponder whether
Delhi, 2010
Cambodia, 2010
Kotagiri, 2012
Cambodia, 2012
If every photograph matters because visuals
P I X | 57
The Memory Bird
Poem by Nandita Jaishankar
Goa, 2011
Rajasthan, 2014
58 | P I X
Inside a box of dark chiseled wood,
like unseeing creatures in blinding light:
amid the smells of old leather
rows of dog-eared,
and tarnished silver,
faded photographs, tangled cloth
there is yellowing paper,
and books,
fading like translucent petals.
crumbling like wet sand.
There are moth-eaten scraps of purple silk
and a secret,
From the belly of the beast there is only this –
curled tight like a ball.
memories of home that dissolve like smoke.
It lies in the darkness and warmth
Open the window –
breathing the dust of decades past
Take flight! Take flight!
waiting for that moment
these moths of dust,
when, unencumbered,
this sharp smell of camphor,
and least expected,
the blossom
it will stretch its wings,
of glossy feathers,
shaking cobwebs and sleep
in a sudden burst of life
from hungry, rattling bones.
all rise!
There are no marble roots,
Strange smelling objects
nothing to hold you back,
will be lined on the bed,
nothing for miles and miles.
P I X | 59
Antonio Martinelli
Oriental Scenery: Yesterday & Today
My first acquaintance with Thomas and William
known as the camera obscura, I understood
knowledge of these vistas, and would serve
additional elements, sometimes even voluntary
Daniells, an encounter which marked my life in
why, as a photographer, I was so drawn to these
others in the future as the Daniells’ aquatints
mistakes. While the Daniells used the camera
the years to follow, was in the 1980s when an
works. In many respects their understanding
had served me.
obscura in order to ensure correct perspectives,
Indian friend, Princess Naheed Mazharuddin Khan
of composition appeared to anticipate
of Surat, showed me Mildred Archer’s book Early
photography.
Views of India dedicated to the aquatints produced
by these two artists some 200 years before.
The impact that these hand-coloured prints
I thought that it would be a unique
experience to follow, almost exactly 200 years
later, in the footsteps of the Daniells and
had upon me was profound: I was fascinated
visit the many sites that they visited in North
by their magical, yet startlingly realistic
and South as well as Western India and to
images of India. Not only was I intrigued by the
reproduce, through my photographs, the very
choice of subjects, but also by the light, shade,
same views that so enchanted the Daniells.
perspective and precision which these artists
My photographs would have to try and match
brought to each of their views, which in many
as closely as possible the original perspective
respects resembled photographs.
and to reproduce their present day likeness
When I learned that the Daniells produced
their aquatints with the help of an artistic device
60 | P I X
as faithfully as possible. My hope was that
these photographs would help to refresh our
Using my camera, instead of the paint
Also from the publication Oriental
Scenery: Two Hundred Years of India’s
Architectural and Artistic Heritage by
George Michell & Antonio Martinelli.
Note: The captions for the handcoloured aquatints refer to the
original Daniells’ captions in the 6
volumes of Oriental Scenery.
All images were shot on 35 mm
Kodachrome and later digitized
Dusasumade Gaut, at Benares, on the
Ganges, 1789. Vol. I, Plate 16.
Varanasi, Ahilyabai Ghat, 1996
brush to seek out original vantage points and
the precedence of such renowned artists as
atmospheric conditions, I was able to produce
Canaletto, etc.), they sometimes took liberties to
a remarkably close visual equivalent to the
enhance their compositions.
Daniells’ aquatints. One by one the aquatints
Govinda Ram Mittee’s Pagoda,
Calcutta, 1787. Vol. II, Plate 5.
Calcutta, Temples on Chitpore Road.
1996
shadows and light conditions (thereby following
The juxtaposition of prints of the past with
divulged their secrets, but sometimes only after
photographs of the present represent a precious
many days of walking along a mountain stream,
documentation and report on the survival of
carefully approaching the side of a hill or in
India’s cultural and topographical heritage over
the turn of a road. Jubilation and euphoria was
a period of over two hundred years. This serves
my reward every time I found the exact point
as a reminder of the enduring qualities of the
at which the Daniells stopped to locate their
country’s architectural and natural legacy, but
perspectives.
also highlights the importance of preserving
The photographs reveal the great precision
of these artists, but they also show missing or
this heritage, and as a warning of the risks and
dangers in the future if this is not done.
P I X | 61
South-West view of the Fakeer’s Rock in the River Ganges,
near Sultaungunge, 1790. Vol. I, Plate 10.
Sultanganj, Jahangira rock, 1996
The Great Pagoda, Tritchinopoly [II. 20], 1792. Vol. II, Plate 20.
Tiruchirapalli, Rock fort, 1996
62 | P I X
The Rock of Tritchinopoly, taken on the River Cauvery,
1792. Vol. II, Plate 19.
Tiruchirapalli, Kaveri river, 1996
The Taje Mahel, Agra, 1789. Extra edition.
Agra, river view of the Taj Mahal, 1996
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Pages 64-65 top :
Eastern Gate of the Jummah Musjid at
Delhi, 1789. Vol. I, Plate 1.
Gate to the Jami mosque, Delhi, 1996
Pages 64-65 bottom :
Gate of a Mosque built by Hafiz Ramut,
Pillibeat, 1789. Vol. III, Plate 10.
Pilibhit, Gate to the Jami Mosque, 1996
Verapadroog, in the Barramah’l ,
1792. Vol. III, Plate 13.
Virabhadra Durg Fort, 1996
Cape Comorin, taken near Calcad,
1792. Vol. IV, Plate 1.
Kalakkadu, Temple tower, 1996
All images from the series Giraffe Behind the Door
New York, 2010-11
Digital
Eurasian eagle-owl inside the enclosure at Central Park
Zoo. March 11, 2011, NY.
66 | P I X
Special Feature
Asmita Parelkar
Giraffe Behind the Door: Life in Captivity
P I X | 67
Animals in captivity are invariably looked at as
mutilation. Giraffe Behind the Door is a journey
of thought around the treatment of humans,
now re-evaluating how cultural organisations
live exhibits—living collections that institutions
though the psychological and physical spaces
through what remains—objects and at times,
should handle such ‘bodies’ in order to
possess, and contextualise in make-belief
of these animals.
the actual body. Thinking about physical
preserve the dignity of the dead. Furthermore,
identity and the genetic line, there appears
many museums now sense mounting pressure
to be a rupture between public sentiment
and increasing demands to repatriate
and institutional concerns—specifically
ancestral remains so as to give generations of
among those objects deemed ‘sacred’ by one
affected families, a sense of peace by laying
community—then preserved and displayed as
such ‘objects’ to rest. Taking this as a sign,
worthy ‘works of art’ by mainstream museums
should we not return nature to her rightful
in other countries. Curators, world over are
place?
environments. The unfortunate and artificial
living conditions of these animals in many zoos
across the world create an illusion of open space.
With the public gaze constantly upon
*
Editor’s Note
In a similar vein, over the last several years
with the showcasing of personal images as
them, the animals often encounter Zoochosis,
‘documents’ internationally, the people of
manifesting in abnormal behaviour, such as
various communities have gradually begun to
pacing in their cages and sometimes even self-
voice their deep concern about the evolution
68 | P I X
Crested Tinamou inside a glass
enclosure in the World of Birds
exhibit at the Bronx Zoo. April 17,
2011. Bronx, NY
A sea lion sitting on top of a rock
inside the exhibit at Central Park
Zoo. March 11, 2011, NY
P I X | 69
Chinese alligators exhibit in Kauffeld
Hall of Reptiles at the Staten Island
Zoo. April 25, 2011, NY
Giraffes in the winter enclosure in
the Bronx Zoo. September 29, 2010.
Bronx, NY
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P I X | 71
Creature Comforts
Text by Hemant Sareen
They try to make you comfortable... If [you] try to
In Brazil, you have the space…We need the space to
compare the situations and the environment that
feel that we are part of the world and not a kind of
we live in here and the environment that we live in
piece of object in a box.
Brazil, there is a big difference. Here, you live in a
This is a transcription of a monologue
very small place with all the technological advances
delivered by a lion lolling on a fake tree branch in
possible… you know but you don’t have the space.
a zoo’s concrete cell gesticulating expressively
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Indian rhinoceros inside the winter
enclosure in the Bronx Zoo.
March 7, 2010, Bronx, NY
Facing page:
Squirrel monkey inside an enclosure
in the Monkey House at the Bronx
Zoo. April 17, 2011, Bronx, NY
Page 74-75:
Amur leopard inside an enclosure at
the Staten Island Zoo. April 25, NY
A zookeeper cleans the bat enclosure
at Central Park Zoo. March 11, 2011,
NY
to vent his grievances in a lilting Latino accent
the words of the animals came from a series of
with its soft consonants. The lion was one of the
interviews with real people talking about their
many animal characters that appeared in a series
real problems. In this lion’s case the voice was of
of short animated films called Creature Comforts
a Brazilian student miserable in a cold, indifferent
(1990) conceived and directed by Nick Park of the
Britain pining for the sun, sea and spicy food from
Wallace and Gromit series fame. The voices and
back home. Creature Comforts was a runaway
P I X | 73
success. Apart from its charm and hilarity of
the sheer absurdity of an otherwise inarticulate
animal’s coming into loquacious verbosity, what
thrilled one was the knowledge—and the deep
empathy it precipitated—of the perfect match
of circumstances of two displaced beings. Asmita
Parelkar’s work mirrors the same absurdity of the
postmodern dislocation of the animal of which
the modern zoo is the epitomy. In Parelkar’s
frames animals seem to blend into the tungstenlit mise en scènes that serve as their ersatz
natural environments whose edges segue into
human habitats. These edges mock human hubris
born of our claims to the ability to understand
animals. The displaced animal becomes even more
of an enigma than it always was—the victim and
cause of man’s own vitiated relationship with the
natural world.
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P I X | 75
Koodankulam: A Nuclear Plant in my
Backyard
2012 (ongoing)
Digital
A Coastguard airplane flies low over
protesting villagers who ventured into
the sea as a part of their Jal Satyagraha
Amirtharaj
Stephen
Koodankulam: A Nuclear Plant
in my Backyard
‘Straightforward’ is a term in photography
that has several ways of approach. Nikos
Economopoulos’s social commentary on the
Balkan nations, Antoine D’Agata’s edgy images of
subcultures, and those who live on the periphery
and Pablo Bartholomew’s autobiographical
intent with photography have all informed my
understanding of how, as well as why I capture
the subject.
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P I X | 77
Koodankulam: A Nuclear Plant in my Backyard
March that year and the subsequent Fukushima
iterates the uprising of the local community
Daiichi disaster caused panic in the region. KNPP
against the government of India upon
was nearing its completion around that time, and
commissioning the Koodankulam Nuclear Power
people living in the vicinity of the plant feared a
Plant (KKNPP), built 18 km from a village called
similar calamity. The villagers, already affected by
Kavalkinaru where I too come from. These images
the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 began raising
have been shot over a period of fourteen months
questions about the safety of the nuclear plant.
and is an ongoing project.
Until 2011, the residents remained indifferent
Idinthakarai, a village located very close to the
plant, has been at the centre of the protests. The
to the possible effects of the plant. The tsunami
villagers, mostly fishermen and farmers, are also
that shook Japan, namely in places like Tohoku in
worried about the ecological impact the plant
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Xavieramma, a resident of
Idinthakarai, cries out for help. She
was later arrested by the security
forces. She has been charged with 16
cases including charges like sedition
and waging war against the nation
P I X | 79
Page 79 clockwise:
A fisherman takes his boat to the fish
market to sell the day’s catch. Every
Wednesday, villagers donate 10% of
their earnings as their contribution
towards sustaining the protest. The
villagers maintain accounts of all
funds collected and spent by them
Idinthakarai village, the nerve centre
of a non-violent protest
Fishermen lay siege to Tuticorin
Port and block the passage of ships
to protest the attack on villagers in
Koodankulam by police forces
This page:
On Hiroshima Day (August 6),
children from Idinthakarai village
protested with postcards they
wrote to the Russian Ambassador
requesting Russia to stop providing
technical support to the nuclear
project
Napolean, a resident of Idinthakarai,
runs after being attacked by the
police
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Thousands of villagers protesting
against the commissioning of the
plant sleep on the sear shore near
KNPP with their children
Police forces assemble in front of
the KNPP before going on rounds
in Koodankulam village after the
imposition of a curfew
P I X | 81
would have on the area—the Gulf of Munnar
is already an ecologically fragile region. They
which India emerged as an independent nation.
I believe that photographs have the clout
have been protesting for more than 3 years in a
to make people re-look at political incidents,
non-violent and peaceful manner, but have been
often having the power to interpret them. Their
repeatedly subjected to violence by government
potential and impact can change the tide of
forces. Today Koodankulam protests not only
the conflict-ridden space by empowering the
create a debate on nuclear energy in India, but
masses—their perceptions as well as what they
also question the philosophy of ‘democracy’ upon
desire to question.
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Villagers lead a holy procession
around the Koothankuli village
praying for the closure of the nuclear
power plant
Villagers from the Koothankuli,
prevented from going to Idinthakarai
due to the curfew, gather in front
of the church and shout antigovernment slogans
P I X | 83
Karthik
Subramanian
Mohona (Confluence)
The Sundarbans is a vast stretch of mangrove
of human-animal encounters in the world. In
waves, governed as they are by the laws of
forests spread across an archipelago of islands
this landscape intersected by a network of
nature. As night falls over the Sundarbans, the
between humans and nature in a place where
in the Gangetic delta in India and Bangladesh.
waterways, the boundaries dividing the human
ambiguities become even more pronounced. The
boundaries are more like conceptual mirages,
Inhabited by over four million people and nearly
settlements and the tiger-inhabited forests
landscape feels dense, the air becomes still and
dissolving and reemerging over time.
six hundred Royal Bengal tigers, the Sundarbans
are ambiguous. The physical boundaries are
is arguably the site with the highest frequency
constantly shaped and re-shaped by the tidal
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Mohona (The Confluence),
Sundarbans 2010-13
Digital
your eyes can deceive you. There is no clear sense
of where the forest begins or the village ends.
I am trying to explore the idea of boundaries
Mohona is my first body of work and it has
taken me over 3 years to reach where I am now.
P I X | 85
Mohona (The Confluence),
Sundarbans 2010-13
Digital
86 | P I X
I was not interested in creating a document
moments when I felt I was truly free from the
on the Sundarbans. I was trying to show what
inevitable passage of time.
happened between the Sundarbans and me, with
The book Moksha (published by Steidl) by
the aim of portraying social issues and concerns
Amrican photogrpaher Fazal Sheikh has been a
in a purely documentary fashion. Over time, the
major inspiration, looking at the lives of widows
shoot became completely devoid of all the social
in Vrindavan. Recently, I have been spending
problems that I had set out to depict. I became
a lot of time looking at the works of Dayanita
more interested in the mystery and beauty of the
Singh and poetic style infused in commonplace
place, of things that were left unsaid, or moments
moments by Japanese photographer, Rinko
that were enduring. For me, the images capture
Kauwachi.
P I X | 87
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P I X | 89
Sundarbans
Poem by Priya Sarukkai Chabria
Everything here glimmers
on the edge that pours
into sky, river, tree, drifting boat.
Everything is everything else here:
sea that’s earth, smooth flowing water that’s
the sky’s cosmic river, stars that are six
petal firefly flowers –
drowned blessings of heaven’s fragilities.
Everything here is anchored on the verge:
the boat that’s empty is filled
with drift and silence. Hear it
as insects fall as comets –
as life clings on.
It’s the gloaming of possibilities:
a boy of stone dreams of two suns in his life
a man of smoke wonders about fish and prayer
a woman of soil wades into light. She’ll dissolve –
as memory is sieved through life’s tremble.
And here’s the tiger
you don’t see
the one that stalks you, the tiger
of your mind
that kills.
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Rasel
Chowdhury
Life on Water
In 2012, the Kurigram District in Bangladesh was
flooded and water logged due to heavy rainfall
that lasted for two weeks. Numerous shelters
were created for affected people. About 100,000
people still remain in shelters in the Kurigram
District because of the damage to property. This
is the second time floods devastated the region
in the same season. Despite the distribution of
Life on Water,
Kurigram District, Bangladesh
2012, Digital
92 | P I X
rations and money during this time, flooding
disrupts rural life in Bangladesh on a regular basis.
People learn to adapt and continue their daily
activities, now governed by a life on water.
P I X | 93
94 | P I X
P I X | 95
Angry River
Text by Trisha Gupta
“It was over twenty years since the river had
Looking at Rasel Chowdhury’s images of the
flooded the island, and at that time no-one had
2012 floods in Bangladesh’s Kurigram District, it
lived there.” So went one of the opening lines of
was Angry River I remembered. I thought of Sita,
Ruskin Bond’s remarkable children’s classic, Angry
the little girl-woman through whose eyes we
River. As a city child, the book was my first inkling
watch the river’s terrifying transformation. In the
that a river wasn’t only what lay below the Howrah
morning, the water is muddy instead of green, and
Bridge: flat, grey, unmoving. A river could be alive.
her favourite rock has disappeared, “the one on
It could be angry. And it could be beautiful.
which she often sat dangling her feet... watching
the little Chilwa fish swim by.” By noon, the water
makes human efforts look foolish. But people
has oozed its way into the hut, and a horrified Sita
are not fleeing the river’s rage. They do not fight
climbs into the big peepul tree. But as the water
the water; they inhabit it. Boys appear to be
rages around it, “a dragon on the rampage”, the old
preparing to fish as they wade through waist-
tree gives up its grip on the earth.
deep water. Women stand stoic, even striking
Sita, clinging to the tree, is set afloat on the
swirling water. But what is remarkable is that
out on the roof of a submerged house. A horse
Bond chooses to evoke awe rather than plain
stands still, and waits. There is a sense that this is
fear. His river is an elemental force against
temporary. Books wait expectantly in the flooded
which it would be foolish to struggle, but it is
schoolroom. But what will be, will be. Even the
also the giver of life. It is the river that gives
gods seem resigned to an early immersion.
Sita’s grandfather his fish, and the silt it leaves
Life on Water,
Kurigram District, Bangladesh
2012, Digital
96 | P I X
a pose for the photographer. Two men stretch
Perhaps, like them, we assume that the river’s
in its wake is where the villagers grow their
wrath will recede, and then the world will be
vegetables—and Sita her mango tree.
reborn.
Chowdhury’s images, too, have that strange
quality of calm. A tubewell in a surging sea
“We are part of the river,” says the boy who
rescues Sita. “We cannot live without it.”
P I X | 97
Special Feature
Paolo Patrizi
Migrant Sex Workers
98 | P I X
Migrant Sex Workers,
2009 (ongoing), Rome
Medium format
Anna, a Nigerian sex worker on her
makeshift bed on the fringes of
Rome, Italy
Kingsize bed #1
Pink Mat
Deborah, a Nigerian sex worker on
her makeshift bed on the fringes of
Rome, Italy
Sharon, a Nigerian sex worker on
her makeshift bed on the fringes of
Rome, Italy
P I X | 99
When Nigerians began migrating to Italy in
the mid-1980s, they were one of the first
elderly care and the sex industry.
The underground economy attracted
communities from developing countries that
immigrant workers providing them jobs without
were attracted by Italy’s demand for low-skilled
regulations. In a market strongly segmented
labour in agriculture and services. Constrained
by gender, age, educational qualifications and
by stringent border controls, many were (and still
population shortages with immigrants, problems
are) pushed to take illegal routes to the country
are worsened by a political system and public
and then adopt professions that are less than safe.
opinion where xenophobia is widespread. As men
The term ‘trafficking’ emerged in the 1990s, and it
remained at work in the fields of the southern
led to new areas of research and activism, such as
regions of Italy where organised crime thrives,
investigating and combating modern-day slavery.
and the line between legitimate and illegal
Those who have been defined as ‘trafficked’ or
enterprises is often blurred—it is here that the
‘enslaved’ have worked in professions ranging
first Nigerian women began to independently
from mining to agriculture, in housekeeping,
work as prostitutes.
Chair #1
100 | P I X
Mary, a Nigerian sex worker in a wooded
area on the outskirts of Rome, Italy
P I X | 101
For over 20 years, the women of Benin City, a
Prohibition and criminalisation of migration
town in the state of Edo in the south-central part
can only worsen work conditions, making sex
of Nigeria, have travelled to Italy to work in the sex
workers more vulnerable to harassment and
trade. Every year, successful ones recruit younger
deportation.
girls to follow in their steps. Driving along country
I started investigating and shooting this
roads on the outskirts of Rome with a Mamiya 7
story five years ago. With hindsight, I find that
during one of my regular visits home, I couldn’t
the situation remains essentially unchanged,
help but notice scantily clad women dotting the
and so my attempt is to allow viewers to
landscape. They work in subhuman conditions
study and contexualise what they are seeing.
and when I started shooting them, I was most
Pictures of migrant prostitutes’ beds, soiled
concerned about depicting them with grace,
and disregarded, give a sense of their socio-
and without revealing their identity. The eerie
economic condition. It therefore seems to me
makeshift atmosphere of the sex camps represents
that narrative photography is well suited to help
a clear sense that the economic and social crises
affirm identity positions. ‘Real photography’ is
are degrading the conditions of everyday life for
impossible to practice, since real events may be
a vast range of people in many parts of the world
strictly individual, but as I discovered, it was
and that the global elites’ answers to these crises
the individual lives of these Nigerians that
cannot provide any solutions, regulations or
faithfully represented the reality of their harsh
reprieve in the near future.
circumstances.
Open-air room
Facing page:
Wheat field
Signs of the changing customers
102 | P I X
P I X | 103
Tuhin Subhra
Mondal
The Place Where I Live
Where I Live
Text by Ruchir Joshi
My camera lives with me in the place where I live.
The Place Where I Live
Kolkata, 2012-14
Digital
104 | P I X
These images are made at the place where I
I clean it, I feed it, I put it to sleep, I wake it up, or
live. They are of the inhabitants, as well as of
sometimes it wakes me up. My camera doesn’t
occasional visitors. I’ve tried to narrate the
mind if where I live is clean or dirty, whether it’s
relationship that I share with them, as well as
calm and peaceful or whether things go crazy
things that I don’t share. I am of the belief that
sometimes, which they do, in the place where I live.
our surroundings are a collection of interfered
Cameras are like animals, they search out
interactions. For lack of better alternatives, we
their own kind. Often I’ll be looking at people, at
are forced to adapt to dividing our amenities; we
my own kind, but my camera will start looking at
develop a sense of unwanted dependency; we
something else. It will find frames and start
learn to become habituated to one other, and
talking to them. Any kind of frame, my camera
we accumulate belongings and relationships,
will gravitate towards it. Mirror, computer
fashioned by our own choices...like a broken
screen, TV, window, mobile phone, those little
mirror. My life is a collection of all these
grids made of wire that you put on the gas
broken relationships, and the place where I live,
flame, anything… my camera is a frame-slut.
represents it.
Hello, how are you? Do you like hanging here?
P I X | 105
What did you see today, anything good? Is it
shutter blur are like pepper, and between me and
painful when people see through you? Or do you
my camera, I try and season it in new ways, the
like it? Hey, would you mind if I…yes, just one
place where I live.
picture while this guy who thinks he owns me
There are these pictures people take of
isn’t looking, a quick one, won’t hurt a bit, there,
Calcutta. It’s the same set of photos they’ve
done. Outside my place, the camera flirts with
been making for over fifty years. For instance,
frames, often never calls them back, but back
people come in from the outside and get very
at home, the frames are like family; you can do
excited about the craftsmen of Calcutta. The
some hanky-panky with family members, do some
clay statue makers of Kumartuli, the pat-painters
haatha-haathi, some pushing and wrestling, but
of Kalighat, oh wow, they’ve been doing this for
you have to maintain a certain love and truth in
so long. I also respect our craftspeople, they
the relationship, otherwise you’ll be in trouble.
deserve respect, that’s not the problem. But now
And my camera seems to know that.
I see these photographers come in and make
You know, people now use this out of focus
the same pictures again and again, also like a
thing all the time in their pictures. I imagine
kind of craft —Calcutta Photograph—and this I
it must have been like that long ago when
can’t respect, turning the place where I live into
people first discovered salt. What a great new
raw material for your same-to-same extracted
ingredient, let’s put salt in everything, let’s make
products for fifty years. I’m not an image-maker
whole meals out of salt with a few other things
from Kumartuli, I’m not a pat-painter from
at the side of the frame. I’m not like that, I’m not
Kalighat, even though they are part of me. Those
a salt-slave but I’m not afraid to use it either, I
people don’t think of Calcutta when they work.
know how to use it quite generously at times. If
Me neither. I try not to think of Calcutta when I
out of focus is salt, then a bit of camera shake or
make pictures in the place where I live.
106 | P I X
P I X | 107
108 | P I X

PIX Habitat, 10 Feb. 2014 - PIX

Transcription

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