Glass Eye: A Podcast on Visual Culture from South Asia

Send us a textIn this episode, we interrogate the photobook, while discussing the various challenges in production and distribution that undergird the still-nascent photobook phenomenon in South Asia. The episode features a candid, free-flowing conversation where Akshay Mahajan, Adira Thekkuveettil & Kaamna Patel explore the origins and evolution of the photobook, as also their own struggles with this ambivalent form, across questions of radical experimentation, genre, dissemination, longevity, and the bequests of the market; excerpts from an insightful talk by Varun Nayar, former Managing Editor of Aperture magazine, at Printed Matter's annual book fair; and snippets of a conversation between Lesley Martin, the Executive Editor of Printed Matter, and Kaamna, illustrating parallels between a range of experimental engagements with the photobook form. Complete Show Notes: https://www.editionsjojo.com/all-episodesHosted by Adira Thekkuveettil - https://www.adirathekkuveettil.com Akshay Mahajan - https://akshaymahajan.in Kaamna Patel - https://kaamna.com Supported by PhotoSouthAsia and Art South Asia Project Produced by Editions JOJOSpecial thanks to Dayanita Singh This podcast is meant to serve as an educational resource and all the recordings used in the episodes are for the purpose of supporting the research.

In Episode 3, we meet the eminent photographer Gauri Gill, recent winner of the prestigious Prix Pictet. We also meet Rajesh Chaitya Vangad, renowned Warli artist & Gauri's collaborator on the body of work Fields of Sight , which is shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize prize 2024. Touching upon two recent publications with Patrick Frey, Gauri opens up to Adira about her life's work and process, thinking through collaboration, representation and what she calls active listening.   Translations:Excerpt 02: 14:14 - 15:42Before anyone else, my parents were like gurus to me; you might say even beyond that. Later on, I learned from Jivya Somha Mashe, a Padma Shri award winning local artist who has done a lot of work for the Warli artfrom and presented it across the world. So I joined him. We had no money in those days, I couldn't afford to go to school. My parents were poor and I had to abandon the traditional Warli way of life to go work for a company outside, which was a very difficult decision for me to make. I depict some of those experiences in my paintings and in this way connect our communal life with my lived experiences. My paintings feature traditional motifs as well as new ones like the company, trains, planes, the city and pollution; this is how we have evolved the art form. We want to say that we are not against education or progress but given the world's present condition, humans need to understand the issues we are grappling with and seek out the right solutions. We try to address this through our artform. Excerpt 03: 17:15 - 17:39(referring to one of his paintings) You can see the fire god, the flies and the butterflies which are all very important to the Warli way of life. Without the animals we share our spaces with, our way of life is impossible. Here you see the peacock and Hirva, one of our gods that lives in the Kuldev (shrine). In this painting that depicts our communal life, it's written that there is no distinction between us and them - all the animals are sacred. Excerpt 04: 18:27 - 18:55We (Gauri and I) traced my personal stories, the stories of my parents, the stories of the village school, stories of moneylenders here, stories of battles, stories from the company I worked for. We went and saw the temple here, the jungle here - the deforestation that's taking place. We revisited all of these relevant locations in the village, took pictures and did many tests before I started to paint over them. Excerpt 05: 23:40 - 24:25It was very difficult to paint over the photographs - If I drew a line with ink, it would sometimes create a tear. I had to be very careful when creating the works - each line was final, we did not redraw or modify a line. Each line had to be painted directly with a stick (I didn't have a brush). It was hard to manage all these aspects in the beginning - drawing the line, thinking about it & keeping my patience - but with time, it started to feel more natural.Hosted by Adira Thekkuveettil - https://www.adirathekkuveettil.com Akshay Mahajan - https://akshaymahajan.in Kaamna Patel - https://kaamna.com Supported by PhotoSouthAsia and Art South Asia Project Produced by Editions JOJOSpecial thanks to Dayanita Singh This podcast is meant to serve as an educational resource and all the recordings used in the episodes are for the purpose of supporting the research.

For Episode 2 we travel to Indonesia and revisit a conversation between Arif Furquan and Akshay Mahajan which was recorded during the 3rd edition of the Jakarta International Photo Festival(JIPFEST). Arif takes us through his exhibition ‘Family to Nation' and his collaborative project with Reza Kutjh titled ‘Unhistoried' which aims to activate the Indonesian family archive, as a means to re-examine, challenge, and decenter history writing.About Arif FurqanArif Furqan, educator and researcher working with photography and visual art. He has been experimenting various approaches utilizing photography and other mediums exploring the issue of family, memory, history, and mobility. He is also a part of Flock Project, a collective exploring the possibilities of photographic works through printed matters. In 2021, he received the Prince Claus Seed Award on the project Unhistoried—an archive-based project on Indonesian family photograph and archive during the New Order Regime (1960-1990s). Now, he is currently doing research and artistic project on the vernacular memory and memory landscape on Indonesian New Order era.2:05Dori and People of Clay 3:52Arif Furqan  4:04 JIPFEST4:49Family to Nation5:22President Sukarno's speech at the Bandung Conference (1955) 13:18Indonesian Massacre and Coup of 196515:44Abri Masuk Desa - Endang S Taurina (1982)22:09Vernacular Social Club22:20Photo Vault Podcast22.36JOJO Library 23:12Indonesian Embassy's video letter to the United States (1955)Hosted by Adira Thekkuveettil - https://www.adirathekkuveettil.com Akshay Mahajan - https://akshaymahajan.in Kaamna Patel - https://kaamna.com Supported by PhotoSouthAsia and Art South Asia Project Produced by Editions JOJOSpecial thanks to Dayanita Singh This podcast is meant to serve as an educational resource and all the recordings used in the episodes are for the purpose of supporting the research.

In Episode 1, Sabeena Gadihoke shines a light on forgotten women amateur photographers from 20th century in India - ‘the Kodak women in striped sarees' whose contributions to the field of photography in the region have been remarkable. Featuring Nony Singh,  Manobina Roy & Debalina Mazumder, Homai Vyarawala and many other inspiring women !About Sabeena Gadihoke:As a scholar, curator and filmmaker, Sabeena Gadihoke's work has focussed on cinema, popular culture and the history of Indian photography. In 1998, she completed her documentary film Three Women and a Camera, a feminist history of the lives of three Indian female photographers, Homai Vyarawalla, Sheba Chachchi and Dayanita Singh. Sabeena has also curated several exhibitions, including  an exhibition called Twin Sisters with Cameras in 2022 that traces the life and work of Manobina Roy & Debalina Mazumder which she co-curated with Dr. Mallika Leuzinger & Tapati Guha Thakurta. Gadihoke lives and works in New Delhi, where she is professor of video and TV production at the MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia, a position she has held since 1990.Source: https://mapacademy.io/article/sabeena-gadihoke/Links Lectures: Dr. Leuzinger - www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9kIuwe8CdI Sabeena Gadihoke - www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOyxJbYtloA Kara Felt - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4i5r8O9EJ4Kodak Ads: Kodak Christmas 1976 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtFwLNBTjBA Kodak India (n.a) - www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iuZoXbPyPs Kodak Disc Camera 1982 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6uTCSfaXVo Harriet Nelson Kodak 1957 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iLrCa_iVvE Kodak Instamatic (n.a) - www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS3llQUI7tI Exposing the Zenana: Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II's Photographs of Women in Purdah: https://maharajacourse.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/weinstein_exposing-the-zenana.pdf The Archivist by Nony Singh: http://www.letterpressdesignstudio.com/letterpress-rukminee-guha-thakurta-the-archivist-by-nony-singhHosted by Adira Thekkuveettil - https://www.adirathekkuveettil.com Akshay Mahajan - https://akshaymahajan.in Kaamna Patel - https://kaamna.com Supported by PhotoSouthAsia and Art South Asia Project Produced by Editions JOJOSpecial thanks to Dayanita Singh This podcast is meant to serve as an educational resource and all the recordings used in the episodes are for the purpose of supporting the research.