Personal Spaces Seep into Photographic Practices at Exhibition

Panaji: Exhibited at the Serendipity Arts Festival here are visuals of the gendered body of a Sri Lankan woman with words like ‘war’, ‘rape’, and ‘abortion’ projected over them, presenting a contrasting picture to what the photograph has been all along. As more “cameras turn to relational things”, instead of showing the world around, the exhibition traces contemporary photographic practices that move towards the personal and intimate.

Curated by photographer-curator and environmental campaigner Ravi Agarwal, the show titled “Intimate Documents” looks at the photograph as a document that turns more contemporary as it showcases more of the photographer’s personal space.

The project, titled “Projecting The Sri Lankan Woman” by Natalie Sosya ad Sachini Perera, looks at the woman’s place in the Sri Lankan society and key issues such as rape, abortion, political discourses around women’s bodies.

Instead of tracing the women’s movements with a larger focus on history, the project is a visual and conceptual ‘personal’ narrative of the journey of the Lankan woman as she navigates through ideas of place, space and rights.

Another co-exhibitor in the group show displaying seven such practices, Anoop Ray puts out ‘intimate’ photographs in his sub-section “Friends and Their Friends”. Captured between 2006 and 2017, these photographs form a personal space of his world.

A walk through the exhibition makes the viewer confront photographs that lie deep down in the camera rolls of most phones. (IANS)

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