Analyzing photographic works in a series curated by Johny ML

Manisha Gera Baswani’s series at Ashna Gallery, New Delhi as part of ‘Lens-ing It’ curated by Johny ML is all about her journey through the lives of the artists and art activists within the context of their work places. In these photographs, Manisha carefully collapses the idea of a secured private into the realm of a discursive public by capturing the most unguarded moments from their lives.

The artist makes a silent intrusion in order to chronicle the lives and times of the cultural makers but at the same time by choosing her silent locations the artist speaks of her idea of looking at artists making and presenting art both within the public and private spheres. She has been working this project for the last twelve years, initially focusing on a couple of artists whom she considers her ‘Masters’ and later looking at more artists who would allow her to click them while they worked.

One of the most interesting aspects of this series is that the subject-object polarization is considerably erased through the nullification of a strong subjective gaze on the body of the ‘objects’. Here the protagonists in each picture appear as if they were just an integral part of the whole setting and cannot be wrested apart for highlighting their presence.

On the other hand, Deepak John Mathew has two series of works in ‘Lens-ing It’ show. Done over a period of time, the first series has images from his home interiors and the second one has images from an anthropological and historical museum. Seen simultaneously, they resonate with the same ideology, tendency and meaning.

They preserve memories in certain ways but through various associations they also preserve the relationship between the extremes of love and violence. The domestic atmosphere devoid of its members but with the symbols and objects that they have left behind reminds one of the museum displays now detached from their original contexts. At the same time the museum displays with the mental associations that a viewer could make in their presence remind one of a domestic atmosphere where history is played out in its various microcosmic forms.

Anup Mathew Thomas looks at the ways in which colonialism has taken various manifestations in our contemporary personal and social lives. There are memories and myths that help the human beings to form an ‘idea’ about their own lives. These memories could be those of colonialism working in personal lives both as history and an ideological notion.

(Information and essay courtesy: curator Johny ML for Ashna Gallery, New Delhi)