Photography in India

Description

Photography in India
From Archives to Contemporary Practice
Edited By Aileen Blaney, Chinar Shar

ISBN 9781350141384
Published September 22, 2020 by Routledge
272 Pages

Photography’s prominence in the representation and experience of India in contemporary and historical times has not guaranteed it a position of sustained attention in research and scholarship. For a technology as all pervasive as photography, and a country as colossal as India, this scenario is somewhat of an anomaly.

Photography in India explores elements of the past, present and future of photography in the context of India through speculation and reflection on photography as an artistic, documentary and everyday practice. The perspectives of writers, theorists, curators and artists are selectively brought to bear upon known as well as previously unseen photographic archives, together with changes in photographic practice that have been synchronous with contemporary India’s rapid urban and rural transformation and the technological shift from chemistry and light to programming and algorithms.

Essential reading for anyone interested in Indian photography, this book binds insights into a history of photography with its contemporary development, consolidating wide-ranging thinking on the topic and setting the agenda for future research.

Table of Contents

Foreword Anna Fox, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK  
1. Introduction Aileen Blaney, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, India  
Part I: Photographic Time and Memory  
1. In the Theatre of Memory: The Work of Contemporary Art in the Photographic Archive Raqs Media Collective  
2. Lady Harriot Dufferin’s Indian Album: ‘My First Efforts in Photography, 1886’ Denise A. Wilson  
3. Itinerant Photography: Medium and Translation in the work of Imran Channa Zahid Chaudhary  
4. Images of Deaths and Marriages: Syrian Christian Family Albums and Oral Histories in Kerala Pooja Sagar  
5. All ‘Dressed Up’: Costume, Fashion and Identity in the Photographs of Homai Vyarawalla Sabeena Gadihoke  
6. Putting Women in the Picture: The Role of Photography in Mobilizing Support for the Indian Emergency (1975-77) Gemma Scott  
7. Copying and De-synchronizing: Performing the Past in Contemporary Indian Photography.Christopher Pinney  
Part II: Photographies in Contemporary India  
8. Photography at the Edge of Representation?: Rethinking Photographs of Rural India Kathleen L. Wyma  
9. Interrogating ‘Credible Chhattisgarh’: Photography and the Construction of a New Indian State Avrati Bhatnagar  
10. Silenced Ruptures, Images from 2002 Gujarat Riots Chinar Shah  
11. Satellite Images in India: Remotely Sensed and Ambiguously Accessed Muthatha Ramanathan  
12. The Self Is as the Selfie Does: Three Propositions for the Selfie in the Digital Turn Nishant Shah  
13. The Unfolding of the Networked Image: An Oscillation between a Simple Visibility and an Invisible Complexity Fabien Charuau  
14. Post-Photography and Missing Images
Joan Fontcuberta
Translation by Ana Mahé  
Afterword
Fred Richin

Editor:

Aileen Blaney is an educator, writer and researcher with an M.Phil and Ph.D. in Film Studies from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. At Srishti, Aileen teaches in the PhD program, is Course Leader for the Postgraduate program in Screen Studies and delivers ‘General Studies’ courses in film, photography and visual theory and criticism at undergraduate level.

Chinar Shah is a photo-based artist from India. She currently is a course leader for Photography at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore.

Reviews:

    “The diversity and cogency of the arguments and experiences examined in each essay make Photography in India a very welcome read for anyone interested in the subject. This collection of essays offers a refreshing, highly engaging contribution that enriches scholarship in the field of Indian photography.”
   –Visual Studies

    “This book is a rich resource for anyone interested in photography in India, especially its use in artistic expression and remediation through archives.”
    –South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies