The Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi recently ended its run of Home and Away, an exhibition featuring the work of nine Indian and foreign photographers, curated by the photographer and curator Sunil Gupta.
Gupta is one of those Indians who are at home throughout the world: in his native India, of course, but also in Canada, where he studied, and England, where he currently resides. “The idea for the exhibition came to me after seeing the series Not at Home by the young photographer Charan Singh when I was living in London after several years in Delhi,” says Gupta. Singh’s series shows the photographer alone at home, confronting himself, assuming his fragility before his camera.
From there, Gupta selected the work of seven other photographers on the theme of one’s relationship to home. All of them are students or teachers at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad or the University for Creative Arts campus in Farnham, England.
Anna Fox, a professor of photography at Farnam, takes on the role of a domestic archaeologist in Home, An Irrevocable Condition, offering viewers traces of her life and those who frequented the North London house where she lived in the 1990s. The photographs—details of the house, from sinks and bathtubs to graffiti and children’s drawings—are displayed next to e-mailed memories from regular visitors to 41 Hewitt Road.
The young photographer Anusha Yadav met with Indian women for whom the home is a part of themselves, as well as an expression of their freedom in India, which remains in many ways a country of tradition.
Like Debra-Lorraine Grant, who photographed a month of meals she prepared for her husband and two children, these women artists reflect on life at home, with some of them—Rishi Singal, Dinesh Abiram and Sunil Gupta—considering their “home” to extend beyond the walls of their houses. Could the representation of home become its own genre?
Home and Away is an exhibition that asks questions, offering a rich glimpse and the young generation of Indian photographers. These two ingredients made Home and Away one of the highlights of the season.
EXHIBITION
Home and Away
September 12th – November 8th 2014
Vadehra Art Gallery
D53 Defence Colony
New Delhi 110024
India
