Chennai Photo Biennale

“Artists in Quarantine,” public intellectuals, and the trouble with empty heroics

Publish Date : 26th May 2020

This article was published in Arts Agenda Reports by Jörg Heiser. "What does it mean to be critical, subversive, nonconformist, and free during a global pandemic? Subversion and resistance are so entwined in the history of art and critical theory—partly justifiably, partly as empty heroics—that even calls for communal solidarity in a public health emergency risk seeming, from that perspective, conformist and submissive. Against the background of that dilemma, influential artists and public intellectuals have struggled to take a coherent position on the crisis. Among them are an internationally famous Italian philosopher, a German theatre director, and a German novelist. But we’ll come to them. The difficulties experienced by artists were demonstrated by the pan-European museum confederation L’Internationale’s “Artists in Quarantine” project."

Creative Risk By Picter - Tasneem Alsultan

Publish Date : 26th May 2020

Meet Tasneem Alsultan, an award-winning investigative photographer who covers stories for the New York Times and National Geographic. Braving shark-infested waters, going undercover, and standing up for herself as a woman in Saudi Arabia are just some of the everyday challenges she faces to get the job done. We learn about her unique upbringing across three countries, and how the irony of being a divorcee wedding photographer plays out in a culture which maintains deep tribal roots.

The State of Photojournalism Today

Publish Date : 4th May 2020

Interview with MaryAnne Golon by Cat Lachowskyj. The Washington Post’s Director of Photography offers her insights into why photojournalism will always prevail, despite our persistent doubts.

A secret family history, reconstructed in the present Santa Barbara

Publish Date : 27th April 2020

Diana Markosian left her childhood home in the former Soviet Union for a new life in California. But it was a journey she never chose to take. To understand her mother’s choices, she had to recreate the first chapter of a story that would inspire her most ambitious project yet.

Pandemic, photography, and psychological distance

Publish Date : 20th March 2020

Columbia Journalism Review spoke with Fred Ritchin, Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography (ICP) School and a former professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University specializing in visual media and human rights, who shared his opinions about early photographic coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the way journalism illustrates trauma. Ritchin’s comments have been edited for length and clarity.

How Dorothea Lange Defined the Role of the Modern Photojournalist

Publish Date : 10th February 2020

She created one of the most enduring images of the 20th century, but she also created a new model for her discipline.

The Good, the Bad, The Dead and the Ugly

Publish Date : 31st December 2019

Colin Pantall is a photographer, writer and teacher based in Bath, in the UK. His photographic work looks at domesticity, fatherhood and family history.

Sohrab Hura: A Carnival of Violence and then a Volta

Publish Date : 16th December 2019

Hura’s project in The Coast alludes to the severe undercurrents of violence in Indian society. The nation’s seemingly chronic problem with religious, gender and caste violence dominates news headlines lately.

A time for experimentation - MK Raghavendra

Publish Date : 14th November 2019

MK Raghavendra is an Indian film/literary scholar, theorist, critic and writer who had, till 2016, authored six volumes on cinema, and contributed to numerous newspapers and periodicals in India and outside, including The Oxford India Short Introduction to Bollywood (2016). He received the Swarna Kamal, the National Award for Best Film Critic in 1997.

Whiteness as a Position - Sunil Shah

Publish Date : 11th November 2019

This book is likely to create more unease and offence than most realised on SPBH, a publisher seldom dealing with such hardcore topics as race in such a direct way, but it must be applauded as certainly an important initiative. Photography continues to be a powerful tool for bringing to light big issues in highly accessible ways, so why shouldn’t it be turned towards this? – the subject that keeps racism and inequality alive and kicking – whiteness.

On the Radically Compassionate Films of Ai Weiwei and Agnès Varda - Curtis White

Publish Date : 7th November 2019

Curtis White is the author of many books, including the acclaimed The Science Delusion: Asking the Big Questions in a Culture of Easy Answers and We, Robots: Staying Human in the Age of Big Data, both from Melville House.

Can a Woman Who Is an Artist Ever Just Be an Artist? - Rachel Cusk

Publish Date : 7th November 2019

The lives of two painters, Celia Paul and Cecily Brown, tell very different stories about what it takes to thrive in a medium historically dominated by men.

Homayra Adiba on capturing a changing homeland

Publish Date : 1st October 2019

My name is Homayra Adiba, I was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where my journey as a photographer started. Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, my school of photography, was one of the best decisions of my life. I moved to Michigan, USA in 2016 and currently nesting here. My inspiration for photography is deeply rooted to the idea of home. I work with memories, nostalgia... going back to my childhood. Besides photography, writing gives me some kind of solitude. I have found interest in making cartoons, handmade notebooks, recycling papers and linocut prints.

“Photography is still just evolving: Jeff Wall in conversation with It’s Nice That ” - Ruby Boddington

Publish Date : 27th August 2019

Ruby joined the It’s Nice That team as an editorial assistant in September 2017 after graduating from the Graphic Communication Design course at Central Saint Martins. In April 2018, she became a staff writer and in August 2019, she was made associate editor.

Informed Consent and How to Fix it - Savannah Dodd

Publish Date : 6th July 2019

The Photography Ethics Centre relies on a global network of industry professionals to ensure that our trainings are collaborative, comprehensive, and up to date with the current debates. Our team members come to this topic with a breadth of experience. They contribute their knowledge of the practicalities of different photographic genres and of working in different regions of the world. Their combined expertise has helped us to develop tools that are relevant for photographers working in any industry.

How photography in India developed from being an instrument of control by British - Adrija Roychowdhury

Publish Date : 29th May 2019

Art historian Diva Gujral and art curator Nathaniel Gaskell trace the long history of photographs in India from the time they were clicked by Europeans hungry to understand an alien race, to the way they tell the story of 21st century India.

Workplace ethics and Indian cinema - MK Raghavendra

Publish Date : 11th May 2019

Seeing in the Eye: On Photography and the Gaze - Emeka Okereke

Publish Date : 7th February 2019

Emeka Okereke is an Igbo-Nigerian visual artist and writer who lives and works between Lagos and Berlin, moving from one to the other on a frequent basis.

Portrait of Humanity: Can photography change the world? - Beth Ryan

Publish Date : 4th January 2019

In light of Portrait of Humanity, a global initiative seeking to prove that there is more that unites us than sets us apart, we ask whether photography has the power to change the world.

The visibility of inner conditions. - Dr. Nadia Ismail

Publish Date : 1st January 2019

Dr. Nadia Ismail is art historian and Director of the Kunsthalle Gießen. Previously working at Kunstmuseum Bonn, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Kunstmuseum Mülheim a. d. Ruhr, at the international exchange project Transfer France?–?NRW as well as Royal College of Art London. Since 2012, exhibition series spiritual ground at former Benedictine Abbey Brauweiler. In addition to her curatorial work 2002–2019 art consultant at Hogan Lovells Düsseldorf. 2008–2014 research assistant University of Cologne, 2014 lecturer Ruhr-University Bochum, 2016 Goethe-University Frankfurt and since 2018 Justus Liebig-University Gießen. Published numerous texts about contemporary art. Member of various expert committees for ‘Kunst am Bau’ projects and ‘art in public space’.

A beginner’s guide to using copyrighted images

Publish Date : 1st January 2019

Pixsy is an online platform for creatives and image owners to discover where and how their images are being used online. Founded in 2014 by Daniel Foster, a photographer who was battling the problem of online image theft.

Interview: Reconstructing Photography and Otherness

Publish Date : 1st January 2019

Eurocentric photography is haunted by its own colonial psyche, and reading the history of European photography in the present tells us much more about the colonising eye than it does about the myriad foreign, othered subjects it focused on.

TALKING ABOUT FOTOFEST 2018 AND OTHER CURATORIAL EXPERIENCES WITH SUNIL GUPTA, PART 1

Publish Date : 31st December 2018

Sunil Gupta is recognised as a photographer, curator, writer and activist for his works and engagements, which largely deal with issues such as racism, alternative sexuality and the voices from the leeway of society and culture. The subject matter in his photographs often poses a challenge to the viewer by bringing out conflicts that appear with the objectification of the viewed. Also respected for his curatorial practice, Gupta’s exhibitions like, INDIA/ Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art and earlier exhibitions like Where Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh at the Whitechapel Gallery, London in 2010, were very well received in the art world as well as in the media. His 2008 co-curated exhibition Click! Contemporary Photography in India is considered an important survey of the breadth of Indian photography at the time, and included over 100 photographs by 86 artists.

TALKING ABOUT FOTOFEST 2018 AND OTHER CURATORIAL EXPERIENCES WITH SUNIL GUPTA, PART 2

Publish Date : 31st December 2018

Photography and the environment: Three perspectives - Hannah Abel-Hirsch

Publish Date : 5th July 2018

Nichole Sobecki, Benoit Aquin and Toby Smith shed light on different aspects of undertaking a long-term environmentally-focused project

Time is on our side: A chat with Vivan Sundaram and Kiran Nadar on art for the people - Jaideep Sen

Publish Date : 8th June 2018

A Zealous Practitioner In The Precise Art Of Unfurling, Holding Up, Deftly Turning, And Getting Absorbed Thereby In The Broadsheets Of A Newspaper, Jaideep Is Constantly In Pursuit Of An Elusive Immaculate State Of Abeyant Being, Which He Strives To Subsume, And Convey, By Keeping His Head In The Clouds, And Having His Feet Firmly Implanted On The Streets, Taking In Every Sight, Sound And Smell In A Manner That He Believes Will Ultimately Fulfill His Existence.

A guide to exhibiting your work - British Journal of Photography

Publish Date : 26th March 2018

Zelda Cheatle, Christine Santa-Ana and Jaimie Marie Davis reflect on the art of exhibiting work.

Interview with T. Shanaathanan: Everyday stories from the war zone

Publish Date : 6th January 2018

Visual artist T. Shanaathanan’s work explores the meaning of home in the context of displacement and migration. Through his researched-based work, often manifested in the form of texts and drawings, he examines complex issues related to Sri Lanka’s civil war that also have global relevance.

Present(ing) History’s Specters - Rashmi Sawhney

Publish Date : 1st January 2018

Rashmi Sawhney writes about cinema and visual culture, and heads the M.A. in Curatorial Practice at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. She is a founding member of the VisionMix network and co-editor of a forthcoming special issue of The Moving Image Review and Arts Journal (Intellect, UK) on South Asian artists’ film and video.

Photographs that show a bygone India

Publish Date : 4th December 2017

This project, funded by the British Library, visited around 100 photo studios across the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu and preserved, or rather digitised, 10,000 prints. Many of the photos were taken between 1880-1980, and they ranged from portraits of families and famous stars to weddings and funerals.

The Aesthetics of Resistance - Rashmi Sawhney

Publish Date : 21st September 2017

Rashmi Sawhney is a Bangalore-based academic and writer whose work deals with cinema and visual culture. She is currently Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at Christ University, Bangalore. Rashmi lived in Ireland for eleven years, where she did her PhD and later took up a Lecturership at the Centre for Transcultural Research and Media Practice (www.ctmp.ie). Prior to joining Christ University she was Associate Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Her research, teaching, and publications have dealt with gender, migration, and more recently science and speculative fictions in the context of cinema.

Language, Representation and Protected Ignorance - Y.S. Alone

Publish Date : 1st September 2017

Dr Y.S. Alone teaches at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. In this interview, Prof. Alone discusses the institutionalisation of ‘protected ignorance’ in postcolonial India, which renders transparent the brahminical politics driving critical and everyday practices and discourses. He argues that, in a process dating at least to colonial times, when artists and other thinkers do develop a counternarrative to hegemonic brahminical thought, they are typically rendered to the ‘margins’ so as to protect the purity of ‘mainstream’ thought.

Any Answers : Christian Caujolle - Michael Grieve

Publish Date : 21st August 2017

The chief picture editor of Libération between 1981 and 1986, Christian Caujoulle left to co-found Agence Vu’ and, a decade later, Galerie Vu’. He has curated and edited countless photofestivals, exhibitions, and books, and is associate professor at the ENS Louis Lumière school

Long before photoshop the soviets mastered the art of erasing people from photographs and history too.

Publish Date : 21st August 2017

Adobe Photoshop, the world's best-known piece of image-editing software, has long since transitioned from noun to verb: "to Photoshop" has come to mean something like "to alter a photograph, often with intent to mislead or deceive." But in that usage, Photoshopping didn't begin with Photoshop, and indeed the early masters of Photoshopping did it well before anyone had even dreamed of the personal computer, let alone a means to manipulate images on one.

Why We Do It: Photographers and Photo Editors on the Passion That Drives Their Work - Oliver Laurent

Publish Date : 30th June 2017

Olivier Laurent was the editor of TIME LightBox from 2014 to 2017. He previously was a news editor at the British Journal of Photography.

Do photographs provoke conscience?

Publish Date : 21st April 2017

The direct representation of human suffering is always fraught with ethical issues, and as in the case of Libération’s exposure of these children to the world, a careful consideration of how well the images serve the common good, against the individual rights of the subjects, must be made. The editor of the French left-wing newspaper has decided, quite rightly, that a war crime must be reported, mustering evidence which is as damning, and unforgettable, as possible; a photograph. On the other hand images that merely sensationalise are often driven by base considerations of commercialism or a desire to attract attention to the messenger themselves rather than the issue being represented.

In Pictures: The Dalit Quest for Dignity in Nepal - Diwas Raja KS

Publish Date : 11th December 2016

DIWAS RAJA KC is an independent scholar whose research has focused on various social movements in South Asia, especially examining issues of gender, sexuality, and labor. He is also a part-time documentary film editor and a commentator on visual culture.

Your photographs could be used by drug dealers - Monica Alcazar-Duarte

Publish Date : 1st January 2015

Monica Alcazar-Duarte is a Mexican-British photographer whose work engages with the way we read and integrate images and information, at a time when information and its context changes at such a rapid pace. Her work examines the relationship between context, interconnection, and conclusion. It draws attention to how much we all need to develop a more ‘curatorial gaze’.

Homai Vyarawalla: India's First Female Photojournalist - Sabeena Gadihoke

Publish Date : 3rd August 2012

Sabeena Gadihoke is associate professor of video production at Jamia University in Delhi and is the author of Camera Chronicles of Homai Vyarawalla.

Treasure house of a rich past

Publish Date : 14th June 2012

The Government Museum, Chennai, is the second oldest museum in India and was established in 1851.

Hyphenated Subjects: Photography - Citzenship

Publish Date :

Is the citizen an operative of the state/regime or does he or she have the authority to challenge it? Are there creative strategies, aesthetic productions, and collective methods of countering hegemony? In the issue we notice how different circuits of circulation catalyze continual re-imaginings of the image, and with the concomitant rise of art and activist initiatives, online presences – the visual field now has a distinct purpose and mandate for readability outside common circuits, suggesting that aesthetics and art are political activities too.

On Photography

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