To survey 150 years of photography from across three countries is an impressive feat. When these countries are as vast, diverse and complex as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, it seems like a mind-boggling task for the curatorial team of When Three Dreams Cross - directed by Indian-born photographer, writer and curator Sunil Gupta.
The result is over 400 images from 82 photographers who have been born, lived or worked in these countries – displayed across three rooms of The Whitechapel Gallery. Between them, they cover a huge diversity of photographic styles and myriad perspectives of life in the subcontinent.
Subjects range from the iconic – Ragu Rai’s portraits of Mother Theresa and Tanveer Shazad’s press photos of the Supreme Court Crisis in Pakistan are instantly recognisable – to the everyday. The marginalised are represented, such as in Munem Wasif and Ayesha Vellani’s brilliant series documenting the lives of rural workers, but they also represent themselves – in amatuer pictures taken by the children of Sonagachi (sex workers) in the slums.
As the titles suggests, the three dreams are crossed. Rather than segregate photographers by nationality, the works are grouped into five themes: The Portrait, The Performance, The Family, The Body Politic and The Streets. Chronology is also eschewed, with works by individual photographers from different eras and countries grouped alongside each other.
The intention seems to be to deflect a linear historical reading of the images and instead focus our attention on the connections between them. The initial effect, however, is to render you slightly bewildered upon entering the exhibition. This feeling is enhanced by a scarcity of contextual information about the artists and works on display, as well as, in my case, an inadequate cultural syntax for religious symbolism, caste and Bollywood history.
As you progress through the rooms though, you begin to see for yourself the emergence of a South Asian photographic tradition, apparent through the imagery and pre-occupations of the photographers. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the show is seeing how contemporary artists are acknowledging, adapting and subverting their own photographic or cultural heritage. Prashant Panja's 1990s series King, Commoner and Citizen is displayed alongside 19th century photographs of Maharajas dressed in all the finery of their traditional ceremonial clothing.
The most curious object I found was the Hijras – an album of eunuchs photographed in their saris and moustaches during the 1880s. It’s displayed near Asim Hafeez’s magazine style snapshots of contemporary ladyboys in Karachi, which claims back self-representation of the ‘third sex’ – an unfamiliar concept to our diametric western understanding of gender.
Despite its challenges, if you’re at all interested in photography or the history, culture and people of the Indian subcontinent, then this is a rewarding exhibition with plenty to get your teeth into. Coming between Indian Highway at the Serpentine last year, and Saatchi’s upcoming mega-show The Empire Strikes Back, I suspect it will retrospectively be seen as an important step in the establishment of a South Asian photographic canon.
Reviewed for Spoonfed.
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