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Rape is Political: Ashfika Rahman’s Portraits from the Khagrachari Hills

Anisha Baid Jan 18, 2021

Ashfika Rahman’s photo series titled Rape is Political attempts to visualise and give voice to the political nature of sexual violence in the Khagrachari hills in the borderlands of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Truth to Power: Shahidul Alam at Rubin Museum of Art

Gulmehar Dhillon Jan 18, 2021

Rubin Museum of Art, New York opened the exhibition Shahidul Alam: Truth to Power on 8 November 2019 following his incarceration.

Experimental Image-making: Jagadish Upadhya's Collective of Film-based Photography

Anisha Baid Jan 18, 2021

Founded and run by photographer Jagadish Upadhya, Film Foundry is a collective concerned with alternative forms of photography on film.

Collaged Photographs: Selected Works of Rupesh Man Singh

Anisha Baid Feb 08, 2021

An artist and photographer based in Kathmandu, Rupesh Man Singh is part of the collective called Film Foundry which operates as a studio and a pedagogic space for the practice of analogue photographic processes.

The Silence of “Others”: Bharat Choudhary’s Exploration of Young Muslim Lives

Gulmehar Dhillon Feb 09, 2021

The project documents the emotional struggles of Muslim youth in the West as they confront negative perceptions and discrimination.

Indigenous Pasts, Sustainable Futures: Images from The Skin of Chitwan

Anisha Baid Feb 10, 2021

The Skin of Chitwan, an online exhibition by the Nepal Picture Library is a manifestation of the ongoing research project Indigenous Pasts, Sustainable Futures that attempts to document, archive and share Nepal’s marginalised histories.

Cigarette Cards: Mapping Relations between Consumers, Colonialism and Trade

Ankan Kazi Feb 12, 2021

Tobacco companies often sought to create narratives through the cigarette card series they produced—whether locating them in the colonies or the metropolitan centers.

Box Camera NOW: Lukas Birk’s Afghan Box Camera Project

Gulmehar Dhillon Feb 12, 2021

The Afghan Box Camera or “Kamra-e-Faoree” is a handmade device that acts as both an instant camera and a darkroom within one large contraption.

Inner and Outer Lives: The Untold Stories of Women by Homai Vyarawalla

Anisha Baid Feb 13, 2021

Curated by Sabeena Gadihoke and supported by the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, Inner and Outer Lives: The Many Worlds of Homai Vyarawalla was an exhibition of photographs by India’s pioneering female photojournalist held at the Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi.

Streets of Intimacy: William Gedney's Banaras Photographs

Avrati Bhatnagar Mar 04, 2021

Marked by a distinct affinity towards documenting existence at the margins of society, the oeuvre of North American photographer William Gedney offers vibrant and wide-ranging views.

Inner World of Conflict: Mayco Naing’s Portraits of Silence

Anisha Baid Mar 06, 2021

Naing’s practice emerges as a response to the repressive and totalitarian political regime that has dominated Myanmar’s recent history.

Kheti Badi: Chinar Shah’s Photographs of her Digital Farm

Anisha Baid Mar 09, 2021

Kheti Badi is a series of photographs by Chinar Shah, made as screenshots on the (once) popular Facebook game FarmVille.

What is a Cine-Ecology? Scenes from Debashree Mukherjee’s Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in a Colonial City

Ketaki Varma Mar 12, 2021

“Filmmaking depends on a dense network of human and nonhuman energies,” writes Debashree Mukherjee as she explains the photographs in her recent book Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in a Colonial City.

Who is a Cine-Worker? Scenes from Debashree Mukherjee’s Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in a Colonial City

Ketaki Varma Mar 13, 2021

Debashree Mukherjee’s book Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in a Colonial City excavates the histories of people and places that make up the cine-ecology of erstwhile colonial Bombay, particularly between the late 1920s and the early 1940s—a period characterised by the shift from silent to talkie films.

Reframing Generic Images: Landscape Photographs by Nihaal Faizal

Anisha Baid Mar 19, 2021

Through minimalist artistic interventions, Nihaal Faizal reframes the contexts of the images and objects that he appropriates.

The Power of Moving Image: An Extract from Filmi Jagat

Editorial Apr 09, 2021

Filmi Jagat: A Scrapbook (Shared Universe of Early Hindi Cinema) was published by Niyogi Books in 2014 and presents the dynamic contours of graphic authorship by an elusive compiler, Mangaldas V. Lohana.

One, Many, And Those Lost In Between: The Photographic Works of Basir Mahmood

Anisha Baid Apr 13, 2021

Basir Mahmood is an artist and filmmaker based in Lahore and Amsterdam. His photographic work includes poetically constructed images that reflect upon social and historical realities embedded within the terrain of the mundane.

Photography as Protest: Anoli Perera’s I Let My Hair Loose

Ketaki Varma Apr 18, 2021

Perera seems to offer this photo-performance as a form of protest against the male gaze.

Material Investigations: Selected Works of Arpan Mukherjee

Anisha Baid Apr 28, 2021

Arpan Mukherjee is an artist and educator working extensively with nineteenth-century photographic processes to address various contemporary socio-economic and political issues.

On Photographer-Soldiers: Looking at Images from Wartime Myanmar

Avrati Bhatnagar Apr 29, 2021

Photographic practice has been implicated in global wars since its inception. In fact, the earliest use of the camera on an international stage was carried out by Roger Fenton in 1855 to picture the consequences of the Crimean War in Europe.

Of Resistance and Memory: Picturing the Mukti Bahini

Ankan Kazi May 10, 2021

The Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army) is a collection of military, paramilitary and civilian forces that fought in the struggle for the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Transforming Landscapes: Painted Postcards of Colonial Calcutta

Ankan Kazi May 11, 2021

It was only after the arrival of Lord Wellesley that erstwhile colonial Calcutta became the subject of systematic town planning and civic improvement.

People of Sri Lanka: Lionel Wendt's Portraits

Anisha Baid May 19, 2021

Lionel Wendt was an important figure in the development of modern and contemporary art in Sri Lanka (erstwhile Ceylon) who carved an influential legacy as a photographer, concert pianist and critic in the early and mid-twentieth-century.

An Experiential Reality: Surrealism and Lionel Wendt

Anisha Baid May 20, 2021

In this continuing presentation of images from the book Lionel Wendt’s Ceylon—one of the few available collections of this pioneering photographer’s work—we consider the influence of surrealism, constructivism and larger modernist concerns visible in his compositions.

Gender and the Veil: Habiba Nowrose’s Performative Portraits

Anisha Baid May 22, 2021

Habiba Nowrose's practice uses portrait photography to produce a complex reflection on the representation of gender, identity and the feminine subject.

Nizamuddin at Night: Gauri Gill Photographs Her Neighbourhood

Gulmehar Dhillon May 31, 2021

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

A Quest for Dignity: The Dalit Experience in Nepal

Gulmehar Dhillon Jun 01, 2021

Edited by Diwas Raja Kc and produced by NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, the book (emerging from an exhibition in 2016) combines text with photographs to depict the brutality and structural injustice that the Dalit community has been subjected to over the course of Nepal’s history.

Informal Institutional Histories: Jyoti Bhatt’s Documentation of MSU Baroda

Samira Bose Jun 16, 2021

Artist and educator Jyoti Bhatt’s personal archive contains extensive documentation from his time as a teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) of Baroda.

Imaging the Black Box: Tara Kelton’s Portraits of Uber as Imagined by Its Drivers

Anisha Baid Jun 18, 2021

Tara Kelton is an Indian-American artist whose work probes the traditional figure of the artist (and craftsperson) in relation to the digital.

Conversation Piece: Consuming The Packet

Veeranganakumari Solanki Jun 21, 2021

Conversations inspired by everyday encounters with art steered two friends, Abdul Halik Azeez and Sandev Handy, to rope in their friends Venuri Perera, Imaad Majeed, Sharika Navamani, Dinelka Liyange, Cassie Machado and SP Pushpakanthan to start The Packet in 2019.

Polycolonial Visions: The Photographs of Frederick Fiebig

Ankan Kazi Jun 29, 2021

Frederick Fiebig was an itinerant commercial lithographer and photographer who worked across a wide expanse of the colonial world in the nineteenth-century.

Illegible Histories and Sacral Margins: The Djinns of Feroz Shah Kotla

Najrin Islam Aug 02, 2021

Taha Ahmad captures the daily happenings in the alcoves of Firoz Shah Kotla through the series, A Displaced Hope, built over years with cultivated access to the events.

Experiential Extensions: On Somaya Abdelrahman's A Permanent Wound

Najrin Islam Aug 06, 2021

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

Explorations with the Human Body: Zia Qadri’s Tryst with Surrealism

Sukanya Baskar Aug 12, 2021

When the photographer Zia Qadri arrived in Los Angeles to join the Art Center School in 1940, there was another famed artist who arrived there. This was the Surrealist Man Ray.

Photographing the Act of Rot: On Maksud Ali Mondal’s Biotope

Najrin Islam Aug 17, 2021

Maksud Ali Mondal’s practice is characterised by the observation of fungal life and creating conditions for their transformation, with the understanding that no state in their mutation is final.

Dramatic Documentation: Photographs of KG Subramanyan’s Outdoor Murals

Samira Bose Aug 30, 2021

The photo-documentation of artist and art-educator KG Subramanyan’s outdoor murals appear to be attempts at exhibiting monumentality as well as precise details through a play of natural light and shadow.

Telegrams from a Landscape Scout: A Para-Archive of Kashmir as Image

Najrin Islam Sep 01, 2021

Moonis Ahmad Shah explores a potential scenario where a scout is hired from the Kashmir Valley and sent to Switzerland―a country often equated with Kashmir in its scenic value and tourism sector, albeit without the precarity of military conflict.

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

Veeranganakumari Solanki Sep 25, 2021

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

Print Advertising in Colonial Bengal: A Visual Lexicon of Commodity Cultures

Najrin Islam Oct 18, 2021

In this curated collection of images from The City in the Archive: Calcutta’s Visual Histories, the trajectory of print advertisements from the early to late twentieth-century is explored in the language of archival documentation.

Women of the Sea: Palani Kumar Documents the Seaweed Farmers of Tamil Nadu

Gulmehar Dhillon Oct 20, 2021

In 2019, during a fellowship with the PARI, M. Palani Kumar, a photographer from Madurai, headed to the sea with seaweed harvesters from Bharathinagar, near Mayakulam village of Thiruppullani block.

Manual Scavenging in Tamil Nadu: Palani Kumar’s Documentation of the Practice

Gulmehar Dhillon Oct 21, 2021

Chennai-based photographer M. Palani Kumar’s work with manual scavengers began when he was the cinematographer (2015–17) for Kakkoos, a documentary film by the activist and filmmaker Divya Bharathi.

Of Life and Labour: Sohrab Hura's Pati

Gulmehar Dhillon Nov 30, 2021

Sohrab Hura’s eleven-minute-long black-and-white documentary film depicts the realities of a small village in the Central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

The Scrapbook as Archive: Wahab Jaffer’s Documentation of Ahmed Parvez

Samira Bose Dec 02, 2021

Wahab Jaffer, a Karachi-based artist was a student of the prominent painter Ahmed Parvez in the 1970s, after which they developed a close friendship, and Jaffer a life-long fascination for Parvez’s work.

Geometric Compositions: On the Photography of Ashini Nanayakkara

Pramodha Weerasekera Mar 22, 2022

While travelling in Tasmania in 2017, Sri Lankan photographer Ashini Nanayakkara encountered miles of vast and desolate architecture, inspiring her to photograph urban landscapes.

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

Najrin Islam Jul 28, 2022

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

Documenting Theatre: Sridhar Balasubramaniyam’s Chameleon Land

Prabhakar Duwarah Dec 21, 2022

Chameleon Land is a photo project by Sridhar Balasubramaniyam that documents Manalmagudi Theatre Land’s entire process as they prepare for and stage the production of Puzhuthimarap Paravaigal.

Parijat, the Nepalese Literary Figure: Through the Interiors

Sukanya Deb Mar 27, 2023

This album looks at Parijat, a renowned literary and cultural figure, and her home, which became the centre of Kathmandu’s intellectual and cultural life in the 1960s and beyond.

Expanded Cinemas, Archival Possibilities: Josef Wirsching and Early Film Histories

Arundhati Chauhan Mar 13, 2024

The archive presents larger questions around the photographic image, the visual influences in the staged images of the actors on set to the mise-en-scene captured by Wirsching, as well as questions of infrastructural archive building.

Shooting Sri Lanka: Abby Robinson on Sri Lankan Film Production

Ankan Kazi Mar 22, 2024

Approaching film production as a site of labour, “experience and infrastructure”, Abby Robinson's photo essay follows the complicated trajectories of several Sinhalese films as well as Tamil ones, noting their discourse of difference (hardened by the brutal reality of war) that percolates into their narrative styles, shooting methods and uses of landscape.

Rituals for the Dead on the Seashore: Cassie Machado’s Afterlife

Pramodha Weerasekera Apr 04, 2024

Cassie Machado's series Afterlife (2011-16) is a haunting reminder of the deaths and disappearances that occurred throughout the Sri Lankan Civil war, purely through remnant belongings as survivor objects.

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

Alfa M. Shakya Apr 11, 2024

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

Legacy Threads: Reading History through the NE India AV Archive

Ankita Ghosh May 14, 2024

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

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

Pramodha Weerasekera Jun 24, 2024

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

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

Annalisa Mansukhani Jun 29, 2024

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

Moonsongs for Earth: Musical Imaginaries of Revolution

Arundhati Chauhan Jul 20, 2024

Prasiit Sthapit’s ongoing documentary series Moonsongs for Earth (2022–) chronicles the histories and legacies of music in the midst of the ten-year-long war in Nepal between the erstwhile constitutional monarchic government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).