International Conference on Photography of India

Inauguration of Exhibitions – Pradyumna Vyas, Director, National Institute of Design
1700 hrs T S Satyan ? Recorder of Life, Beauty and Truth, Aquarium | NID & Tasveer
1730 hrs Travelling Light, Foyer | Maria Kapajeva
1745 hrs ?+91? Graduate Students Exhibition, Old Canteen | Richa & Soumyadip
1st February 2012
0900 hrs Registration
0930 hrs Inauguration & opening address | Pradyumna Vyas, Director, NID
1000 hrs Session I Photography and Photography Education
Shahidul Alam Drik | Bangladesh
Nayland Blake International centre of Photography (ICP) | USA
Anna Fox University for Creative Arts (UCA) | UK
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew University of Rhode Island | USA
Pablo Barthelomeow Photographer | India
1130 hrs Tea Break
1145 hrs Session II Photography and Photography Education
Sunil Gupta Photographer, Curator | India
David Moore Central Saint Martin College of Art& Design | UK
Peter Sramek Ontario College of Art & Design University | Canada
Deepak John Mathew National Institute of Design Ahmedabad
1300 hrs Lunch Break
1400 hrs Session III Connecting the World ? Collaborative Projects and Exchanges
Lucida Photographer?s Collective | India
Maria, Peter & Chinar Collaborative Project | India, UK, Canada, Brazil
& Finland
Andrew Bruce & Shilpa Gavane Academic Exchange | NID-UCA
Nayantara Photo Circle | Nepal
Maniyarasan R & Rahul SR History of Indian Photography | NID
1530 hrs Tea Break
1545 hrs Session IV Photography and Practice
Karen Knorr Photographer | UK
Vivek Vilasini Photographer | India
Nandini Valli Photographer | India
Magi Viljanen Photographer | Finland
Neeta Madahar Photographer | UK
2nd February, 2012
0930 hrs Session V Photography and Research
Esa Epstein Sepia Eye | USA
Sabeena Gadihoke Researcher, Jamia University | India
Anusha Yadav Photographer, Researcher | India
Johny ML Art Critic, Curator & Writer | India
1100 hrs Tea Break
1115 hrs Session VI Photography and Dissemination
Abhishek Poddar Gallerist | India
Aditya Arya Photographer, Researcher | India
Radhika Singh Gallerist | India
Prasant Panjiar Photojournalist | India
1300 hrs Lunch Break
1430 hrs City of Photos/Three Women and a Camera (Documentary @ Auditorium)
Inside Out III (Closed session at Board Room exclusively for delegates)
1400 hrs Photography Education in India, UK and USA- Perspectives
1700 hrs Tea Break
1715 hrs Concluding Session (Auditorium)
Speakers Profile
Nayland Blake
Nayland Blake is an artist whose mixed-media work has been variously described as disturbing, provocative, elusive, tormented, sinister, hysterical, brutal, and tender. Among his most famous pieces are a log cabin made of gingerbread squares fitted to a steel frame entitled Feeder 2 (1998). When it went on display at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, visitors furtively nibbled off bits and pieces of the cabin?s interior walls, while the smell of the gingerbread filled the gallery.Another well-known work is Starting Over (2000), a video of the artist dancing with taps on his shoes in a bunny suit made to weigh the same as his lover, Philip Horvitz. The suit was so heavy that Blake could hardly move as he took choreographic directions from Horvitz offstage.Gorge (1998) is a video of the artist sitting shirtless being hand fed an enormous amount of food for an hour by a shirtless black man from behind. In 2009, a live version of Gorge was staged in which audience members fed Blake.
Dr. Deepak John Mathew
A design teacher and a practicing photographer lives and works in India. Deepak John Mathew is teaching at the National Institute of Design (NID). He has an experience spanning over 20 years in professional photography, painting and graphics.He holds a master’s degree in Fine Arts (Graphic Arts) from the M.S. University, Vadodara and has a PhD in Design Education from the Center for Advanced Studies in Education, M.S. University, Vadodara. He has been instrumental in designing and developing the dual postgraduate program in Photography Design. He also set up the Photography Design discipline and started an International Postgraduate Certificate Program in Photography at the institute in collaboration with University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK. Deepak has curated a number of exhibitions at NID, including those featuring the works of famed photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Anne Maniglier, and Raghu Rai. He has received many awards including the Commonwealth Fellowship for Photography (2011) and exhibited his works at many international and national exhibitions and has authored several papers. He has written a book called, Principles of Design through Photography. He has also been contributing to various NID publications. He has been invited as visiting faculty, lecturer, external evaluator, mentor, and advisor to various universities and institutes all over the world. Besides photography, Deepak’s interests include history of art, color&form, and illustration.
Sunil Gupta
Born in New Delhi, and growing up watching Bollywood films in all their glorious colour, Sunil Gupta moved to Montreal with his family in the late 1960s, where his interest in photography began to develop. From the mid-1970s he lived in New York, where he studied photography at the New School for Social Research under Lisette Model. At the end of the 1970s, he moved to London to continue his studies at the West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham, and the Royal College of Art, London. He was involved in the founding of Autograph (Association of Black Photographers) in London, and he also set up the Organization for Visual Arts (OVA) to promote a greater understanding of questions regarding cultural differences and their incorporation into the sphere of fine art. He works as a photographer, writer and curator out of London and Delhi
Sabeena Gadihoke
Sabeena Gadihoke is Associate Professor of Video and Television Production at the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia University in New Delhi and is also an independent documentary filmmaker and cameraperson. Her book Camera Chronicles on India?s first woman press photographer, Homai Vyarawalla was published in 2006. She is currently working on her dissertation on a cultural history of photography in India during 1945-1970.
Radhika Singh
When Radhika Singh set up Fotomedia in 1988, it was the first photo-library in Delhi to store, promote and market photographs. Radhika Singh had no experience in running her own enterprise. What she did have were three degrees — a B.A. in English, an M.A. in Social Work, an M.Phil in Sociology — and stints in modelling and theatre.She has an M.Phil in Sociology, been a model, is active in theatre, has dabbled in social work and is a successful entrepreneur. But for someone with her range of interests, Radhika Singh is a remarkably focussed woman. In less than 10 years, 42-year-old Singh has taken her outfit, Fotomedia, from an oddball little venture to a still-unusual, but profit-making, enterprise.
Neeta Madahar
Neeta Madahar received her MFA from the Museum School at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 2003. As a British citizen of Indian descent who has lived and worked in the U.S., Madahar constantly refers to themes of migration and transition throughout her work. Madahar’s thesis project entitled Sustenance gained immediate interest and was shown at the Arles Festival curated by Martin Parr in 2005, followed by shows in Boston, London, and Germany. In this project, Madahar examines the complexities of the domestic environment through her exploration of the various bird species that gather to feed at her home in Framingham, Massachusetts. Using a large-format camera, Madahar juxtaposes contrasting ideas of familiarity and strangeness, belonging and migration, and prolonged routine and repetition.
Karen Knorr
Karen Knorr, an American was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and was raised in San Juan Puerto Rico in the 1960s. She finished her education in Paris and London graduating from the University of Westminster in 1980 with a first in Photography and Filmic Art. Karen has taught, and lectured internationally including The Sorbonne,Paris, Goldsmiths College, London,Harvard University and The Art Institute of Chicago in the U.S.After graduating from the University of Westminster in the mid 1970?s, Knorr exhibited photography that addressed debates in cultural studies and film theory concerning the ?politics of representation? practices which emerged during the late 1970?s and early 1980?s. Karen Knorr is currently Professor of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts at Farnham, Surrey and lives in London.
Anna Fox
Anna Fox first gained attention for Work Stations: Office Life in London (1988), a study of office culture in Thatcher’s Britain, originally commissioned by Camerawork and The Museum of London. She is best known for Zwarte Piet (1993-8), a series of twenty portraits taken over a five-year period that explore Dutch ‘black-face’ folk traditions associated with Christmas. The images of costumed revellers, posed in the manner reminiscent of seventeenth-century Dutch portraiture, have been widely exhibited internationally. Other projects have included The Village (1992), a multi-media collaboration with the writer Val Williams, examining the experiences of rural women, Country Girls, a collaboration with singer/songwriter Alison Goldfrapp portraying a fairytale nightmare vision of life in the country for young women, and Friendly Fire, which records the leisure activity of paint-balling in the manner of war reportage. More recent publications include Cockroach Diary and My Mother’s Cupboards and My Father’s Words (2000), which deal with autobiographical narratives and were designed as miniature, limited edition books. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally and she is now Professor of Photography at the University College of the Creative Arts, Farnham and has been part of the UCA team who have worked with Dr Deepak John Mathew to develop the PG Diploma in Photography Design at NID.
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew is Professor of Art (Photography) at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island. Matthew?s recent exhibitions include Sepia International, New York City, the RISD Museum, Newark Art Museum, Newark, NJ, 2009 Guangzhou Biennial of Photography, China, 2006 Noorderlicht Photo Festival in Netherlands and the 2005 Le Mois de la Photo ? Montr?al Photo Biennale in Canada.Among the list of grants recently supporting Matthew?s work include the John Gutmann Fellowship, MacColl Johnson Fellowship, Rhode Island State Council of the Arts Fellowship and the American Institute of Indian Studies Creative Arts fellowship. Her work can be found in the collection of the George Eastman House, Fogg Museum, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Center for Creative Photography and the RISD Museum among others. Matthew?s work is included in the book BLINK from Phaidon, that according to the publisher celebrates the quality and vision of today’s 100 most exciting international contemporary photographers and the upcoming books The Digital Eye by Sylvia Wolf and Self-Portraits by Susan Bright.
Pablo Bartholomew
Pablo Bartholomew is an independent photographer based in New Delhi, India Represented by Gamma Liaison for over 20 years, he worked as a photojournalist recording societies in conflict and transition. His works have been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, Business Week, National Geographic and GEO, amongst other prestigious magazines and journals. Pablo Bartholomew at the age of 19 won the World Press Photo award for his series on Morphine Addicts in India (1975) and the World Press Photo of the Year for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy(1984).
David Moore
Based in London, David Moore has been a practicing photographer since 1989 after graduating from West Surrey College of Art and Design. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including group shows in 2010 at the Thessaloniki Photo-Biennale and Les Photaumnales in Beauvais, France. The Last Things, a publication and touring solo exhibition, travelled to Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Belfast Exposed, Impressions Gallery Bradford and UH Galleries, Hertfordshire, 2008-09. Moore?s work is held in public and private collections including Nuffield College Collection, Oxford University; the Ranstad Collection, The Netherlands; and, the Ministry of Defence Art Collection, London. David Moore is currently Senior Photography Lecturer at Central Saint Martins College, London.
Abhishek Poddar
Abhishek Poddar is the director of Bangalore based gallery, Tasveer. Dedicated to promoting and showcasing photography in all its forms, Tasveer has created a network of galleries between Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Since its inaugural show in October 2006, over 100 exhibitions have been held and the also gallery organizes lectures, workshops and other educational activities, both in India and abroad.
Nandini Valli
Born in 1976, Nandini Valli was raised in Chennai, India where she continues to live. She completed several degrees before entering the field of photography. After an 18 month apprenticeship with a leading commercial photographer in Chennai, Nandini decided to pursue a B.A Honours in Photography from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, UK (now known as the Arts University College Bournemouth). This is where she realized she was more suited to producing art photography as opposed to commercial photography.
Anusha Yadav
Anusha S. Yadav, born in London, is a Mumbai based Urban Documentary Photographer. She was bought up London and later in Jaipur, Rajasthan India. She graduated in Communication Design from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad in 1997. Anusha?s interest in photography began while still at design school. Subsequently, she attended University of Brighton to study photography for a semester.After thirteen years of a successful career in graphic design and advertising, Anusha began working as an independent editorial and documentary photographer in 2006 in India. Since then she has photographed several well known personalities and significant events all over the country.
Johny ML
Johny ML is a Delhi based art critic and curator. With twenty years of experience, JohnyML has done several national and international art projects successfully. Founding editor of www.mattersofart.com and www.artconcerns.com, JohnyML has initiated and executed projects like Finding a Lost Culture and Tradition (FALCAT 2009), Vibrant Gujarat (2009), Video Wednesdays@Gallery Espace (2009), Expressions at Tihar (2009). He has curated several shows and directed documentaries on contemporary artists.
Prasant Panjiar
Prashant Panjiar is a self-taught photographer. A post-graduate in Political Science from Pune University, India, he worked on photographic projects focusing on peasant movements and other social issues through his college and university days. His first self-financed project that received acclaim was his work for a book on banditry in the Chambal region of Central India. As one of India?s senior photojournalists and picture editors, Panjiar is actively involved in guiding young photographers. He is one of the three senior photographers who select and mentor young documentary photographers for National Foundation of India?s fellowship programme. Panjiar served on the jury of the World Press Photo Awards in Amsterdam in 2002, the China International Press Photo Competition in 2005 and the Indian Express Press Photo Awards.
Shahidul Alam
A photographer, writer, curator and activist, Shahidul Alam obtained a PhD in chemistry at London University before switching to photography. He returned to his hometown Dhaka in 1984, where he photographed the democratic struggle to remove General Ershad. A former president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society, Alam set up the award winning Drik agency, the Bangladesh Photographic Institute and Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography, considered one of the finest schools of photography in the world. Director of the Chobi Mela festival and chairman of Majority World agency, Alam?s work has been exhibited in galleries such as MOMA in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Royal Albert Hall in London and The Museum of Contemporary Arts in Tehran. He has been a jury member in prestigious international contests, including World Press Photo, which he chaired. An Honorary Fellow of the Bangladesh Photographic Society and the Royal Photographic Society Alam is a visiting professor of Sunderland University in the UK. He recently set up a media academy in Bangladesh.
Vivek Vilasini
Born in 1964, in Trishur, Kerala, Vivek Vilasini trained as a Marine Radio Officer at the All India Marine College in Kochi, and then obtained a Bachelor?s degree in Political Science from Kerala University in 1987 before turning to art and studying sculpture from traditional Indian craftspeople. Vilasini?s work has been exhibited in several solo shows including several editions of ?Between One Shore and Several Others? at Birds Gallery, Trivandrum, Arushi Arts, New Delhi, Sumukha Gallery, Bangalore, and the Visual Arts Gallery, ?In Focus: Contemporary Indian Photography? at Crimson – The Art Resource, Bangalore, in 2009; ?Re-Claim/ Re-Cite/ Re-Cycle? presented by Latitude 28 at Travancore Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2009; ?Metamorphosis: Change and Continuity in Indian Contemporary Art? at PAC Gallery, Phyllis Weston-Annie Bolling Gallery and the Krohn Conservatory, Cincinnati, in 2009; ?Bapu? at Saffronart, Mumbai, in 2009; and ?Who Knew Mr. Gandhi?? at Aicon Gallery, London, in 2008. The artist lives and works in Bangalore.
Peter Sramek
Peter Sramek studied photography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Minor White and has taught at the Ontario College of Art & Design University in Toronto since 1976, currently serving as Chair of Photography. In 1978, he became a founding member of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography in Toronto, one of Canada?s leading artist-run centres. His work incorporates silver photography, digital imaging, handmade books and video installation. Represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery, he is included in collections such as the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, National Library of Canada, Mus?e Carnavalet (Paris), MOMA (NYC), Art Gallery of Hamilton, Toronto Archives and Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Recent solo exhibitions include the French Institute of Prague and Gallery 345 (Toronto). Sramek’s black and white silver photography currently explores European historical sites and incorporates rephotographic strategies, working from historical archives. His handbound artist?s books are in various collections, notably the National Library of Canada and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is currently recipient of a Google Research Award to develop an online/mobile presentation of his rephotographs of Paris street views made after photographs by Charles Marville between 1865 and 1877.
Magi Viljanen
Artist and photographer Magi Viljanen has created a long and respective career as an art and commercial photographer. Her photography original and stand out from the mainstream in a refreshing way. As a photographer Viljanen is unprejudiced and has chosen challenging themes many times during her career. Bravely she has tried different methods and materials in her works. “I think art is meant to move something in a person, and at its best art affects those things that people may have become numb to. I don’t see myself as a subjective artist but as a part of something common, and that is way I work. I am a documentary photographer and I think that art that makes a statement is important.” The work of Magi Viljanen is easy to approach and touching in its way to show the truth and representation of life. All the viewers can integrate with some aspect in her pictures. Her works brings the reality of others in front of us allowing us to see true stories from this world.
Lucida
Lucida is an independent photographers’ collective based out of New Delhi. It aims to develop and support a range of independent and critical photographic practices that focus on research and education. Lucida endeavors to influence photographic thinking through a design oriented approach in photography services.
Esa Epstein
Esa Epstein established sepia EYE in September 2009 which is dedicated to showing a spectrum of modern and contemporary photography and video work from Asia., During her tenure as the Executive Director and Curator of SEPIA International and The Alkazi Collection (1995-2009), Esa Epstein has published eight titles on modern and contemporary photography including: Atul Bhalla: Yamuna Walk (sepiaEYE & UW Press, 2011), Jungjin Lee: Wind, essays by Eugenia Parry and Vicki Goldberg (Aperture/SEPIA, 2009); Ketaki Sheth: Bombay Mix, preface by Suketu Mehta (Dewi Lewis/SEPIA, 2007); and Vivan Sundaram: Re-take of Amrita, essays by Vivan Sundaram and Wu Hung (SEPIA, 2006). In her former position, Esa Epstein has helped build an impressive collection of Indian photography and, along the way, has offered her expertise to both private and public collections. Esa Epstein continues to offer institutional planning and arts management through sepia EYE.
Maniyarasan R
He is a freelance professional photographer with a Bachelors degree in Architecture from the SPA New Delhi, and a Masters in Photography Design from NID Ahmedabad, where he worked as an Associate Faculty after his post graduation. He strongly believes that every challenge presents itself with a bundle of opportunities, if only we have the creativity, innovation and an eye for detail. His main inter?est apart from architectural and heritage documentation lies in capturing the essence of pure human emotions, and the sanctity and joy of weddings- moments that bind people together. Through his visual documentation, he has been on a constant endeavour to capture the context of ?life? in relationship to time, space and emotions. Besides, he was nominated as the ?Wedding photographer of the year? for two consecutive years, conducted by Better Photography and Kodak for the years 2010 and 2011.
Rahul S Ravi
Rahul S Ravi completed his Master?s in Photography Design from the National Institute of Design (NID), which is internationally acclaimed as one of the foremost multi-disciplinary institutions in the field of design education and research. A literature graduate and a graphic designer by profession, he was a passionate practicing photographer before joining the course at NID. A humanist eye drives his photography and his documentation has a conceptual approach to it. His photographic projects try to bring in focus socio-cultural issues that have been at times overlooked by the mass media. These very qualities in his work ?Indian Jewish identity? made him the Second Indian to win the prestigious Tierney fellowship. He is currently working as a Teaching Associate in Photography Design at National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad.
Maria Kapajeva
First time Maria visited India as an exchange student coming to NID and returned later as a visiting lecturer and coordinator. Together with her personal project about Indian young women, Maria will present the results of two collaborative international projects such as Collective Body and Travelling Light show. Maria Kapajeva is Estonian photographer based in the UK who works for Photography course of University for the Creative Arts (Farnham, UK) and at the same time studies at University of Westminster (MA Photographic Studies course).
NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati
NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati graduated from Mt Holyoke College, Massachusetts with a degree in International Relations and Studio Art. She went on to the SALT Institute of Documentary Studies, Portland, ME to study Documentary Photography.
NayanTara came back home to Nepal in 2006 and began working as a freelance photographer and multimedia producer. Her work focuses on intimately documenting her country- ?the New Nepal?- and its dynamic transformation from the world’s last Hindu monarchy to a new democratic republic.
In 2007, NayanTara co founded photo.circle; a photography collective that has created a platform for emerging and professional photographers in Nepal.