India/Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art,
conceived and edited by Steven Evans and Sunil Gupta, (Fotofest, Inc. and
Schilt Publishing), is a much-needed spotlight on contemporary image-based art
produced by people of Indian origin. This book is the companion to Houston’s
Fotofest 2018 Biennale which featured a show on this topic curated by Sunil
Gupta in the Houston area during the Biennale.
Gupta and Evans have put together a group of 47 artists
who visually represent current themes related to India and/or Indian identity
in a variety of ways. Important to note is that this book (and exhibition)
focuses on art made since 2000. Gupta curated a show of South Asian Art from
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh for the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 2010
and he notes that this exhibition and book is the next installation of this effort.
Accompanying the work of the artists are four essays that
shed light on the various practices in the book. Gupta writes about his own
efforts to discover and uplift the voice of contemporary photography dealing
with his country of origin. In a recent conversation with Gupta at a dinner in
Cambridge, MA, Gupta told the small group that artists from non-western regions
don’t need members of the West to speak for them or to ‘validate’ their work.
He did, however, express the importance of inclusion in shows and gallery
representation. This book and Fotofest 2018 provided Gupta and these various
artists with a platform for exposure and an opportunity to edify all who engage
with the work.
Three other essays accompany the work. Guyatri Sinha,
critic, curator and founder of the Critical Collective forum writes about
identity and self-representation in Indian photography through time. Curator
Nada Razaalso considers identity but via the role of artists who utilize
impersonation and imitation. Cultural critic and author, Zahid R. Chaudhary,
looks at how politics and social friction are visually represented in the
context of postcolonial and post-liberalized India.
Sunil Gupta
The photographers included in the collection represent a
wide variety of approaches to themes and methods of expression. Some of the
work is firmly rooted in interpretive documentation of India’s land and
cultures. For example, Rishi Singhal’s A River Story is concerned with the
sacred Ganga River and how it passes through the land and the heart of India.
Gauri Gill’s series, Jannat 1999-2007 follows the life of a girl and her family
living on the margins of society in a remote hamlet in rural Rajasthan.
Including photographs of Jannat and her family, as well as images of some of
her artifacts, Gill creates a touching story reminding us that many people
remain vulnerable.
Other artists are working on issues of identity and
social concerns within India. Mithu Sen has produced a very touching and
poignant body of work, I Have Only One Language; it is not Mine. Sen has found
a visceral way to visually represent the gaps in nurturing and memory that
abandoned girls living in an orphanage in Kerala might experience. In the
series, Where They Belong, Vinit Gupta has photographed Mahan, the the last
patch of forest in a coal mining town in central India. Indigenous people have
been in struggle with the State over the right to their land, which is being
threatened by the State for its coal reserves.
Another genre of work investigates identity through
performance. Chennai based Nandinni Valli Muthia, in her work The Definitive
Reincarnate, for example, has recreated scenes in which her model represents
Krishna and Vishnu with mythical references mixed with mundane details of the
settings of daily life. New England based Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, in her
series An Indian from India, creates self-portraits in which she references
photographs of Native American Indians in the US. She presents the work as
diptychs showing the original image of the Native American Indian and her
performed self-portrait.
In summary, the 47 photographers represented in this book
present many engaging approaches to issues important in and about India today.
This collection of images, and the accompanying set of essays, is a welcome
showcase of artists who are grappling with the dynamic, multi-layered cultures
of India and the threads of Indian identity.
India/Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art,
Steven Evans and Sunil Gupta,
Fotofest, Inc. and Schilt Publishing, 2018
Julie Williams-Krishnan is a fine art photographer and the
Director of Programs at the Griffin Museum of Photography. She has exhibited
her photographs at the Cambridge Art Association, the Griffin Museum of
Photography, the Khaki Gallery, and Zullo Gallery in the Boston region, the
Colson Gallery in Easthampton, Massachusetts, The Center for Fine Art
Photography in Colorado, the A. Smithson
Gallery in Texas, as well as other venues. Based in Boston Massachusetts since
2010, Julie lived in London, UK for more than 16 years and has traveled
extensively.
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