Reimagining Contemporary Indian Photography a Dissertation
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Intimate Durations: Reimagining Contemporary Indian Photography A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Art History by Alice Sophia Powers 2018 © Copyright by Alice Sophia Powers 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Intimate Durations: Reimagining Contemporary Indian Photography by Alice Sophia Powers Doctor of Philosophy in Art History University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Saloni Mathur, Chair This dissertation examines a mode of photographic practice in contemporary India marked by intimate, long-term engagement between artist and subject. I argue that the aesthetic of intersubjectivity embodied in this work lays claim to a sophisticated, progressive politics of gender and alterity through attention to complex negotiations of social hierarchy within contemporary India. In exploring the under-examined role of photography in the development of recent South Asian art, I further argue that this work anticipates the participatory paradigm that came to prominence in South Asia in the early 2000s, and that the unique history of photographic practice in the subcontinent opened significant possibilities for more substantially relational engagement between artist and subject. Building on this history allowed the three photographers at the heart of my ii project to develop a form of quiet activism, exemplary within the trajectory of contemporary art in South Asia. My analysis is grounded in the work of three Delhi-based photographers: Sheba Chhachhi (b. 1958), Dayanita Singh (b. 1961), and Gauri Gill (b. 1970). Each embraces a mode of social outreach across boundaries of cultural difference over long periods of time, often more than a decade. Chhachhi began her work with women activists, and later explored the lives of female sadhus (Hindu religious renunciates). Singh photographed Mona Ahmed—a member of the highly insular hijra (transgender/eunuch) community in South Asia, and later focused on the equally insular communities of India’s social and economic elite. Gill pursued relationships with several rural communities in Rajasthan, and spent more than eighteen years photographing girls and their families as they negotiated harsh conditions of survival often beyond the purview of the state. This dissertation proposes a framework for understanding the intersubjective aesthetic embodied in these works on the basis of three interrelated qualities: a long temporal duration that enables complex representations of time within the work; a struggle for personal and cultural recognition on the part of both photographer and subject within South Asia’s complex social hierarchy; and ethical agency on the part of the photographer to represent her subjects responsibly and bear witness to the complexity of their lives. iii The dissertation of Alice Sophia Powers is approved. Miwon Kwon Purnima Mankekar Dell Upton Saloni Mathur, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………. …..…. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………......…...…. xvii VITA……………………………………………………………………………….………. xxi INTRODUCTION: Framing an Intersubjective Aesthetic………………………………. 1 Photography’s Gendered Histories Expanding Photographic Histories of South Asia Beyond the Ethnographic Turn Avant-Garde Formulations CHAPTER ONE: The Curious Temporality of Performance in the Photographic Practice of Sheba Chhachhi……………………………………………………………………………………. 33 The Decisive Moment in Indian Journalism Picturing Protest: The Women’s Movement, 1980 – 1991 Seven Lives and a Dream: Staged Portraits, 1990 – 1991 Women of the Cloth: Ganga’s Daughters, 1979 & 1994 – 2004 Toward a Conclusion CHAPTER TWO. Recognition and Hierarchy in the Work of Dayanita Singh……….…….80 The Drive for Recognition Myself Mona Ahmed Privacy Toward a Conclusion CHAPTER THREE. Absence in the Desert: The Quiet Ethics of Gauri Gill………….……122 Jannat v The Significance of Text Photographic Precedents in Rajasthan Balika Mela Toward a Conclusion EPILOGUE: The Extended Practice of Sheba Chhachhi, Dayanita Singh, and Gauri Gill..............................................................................................................................178 Sheba Chhachhi Dayanita Singh Gauri Gill Looking Forward, Together FIGURES………………………………………………………………………………….192 WORKS CITED.……………………………………………………………………….…249 vi List of Figures Figure 0.1 Gauri Gill, Untitled, from the series Jannat, 1999-2007, silver gelatin print. (Copyright Gauri Gill) 192 Figure 0.2 Dayanita Singh, I started to dislike humans so much that I started to adore animals and made my family of animals. I had one Doberman, one monkey, four rabbits, two dozen ducks. 1999. Photograph reproduced from: Dayanita Singh, Myself Mona Ahmed (Zurich: Scallo Publishers, 2001), 115 192 Figure 0.3 Sheba Chhachhi, Untitled. Photograph reproduced from: Sheba Chhachhi, Women of the Cloth: Photographic Conversations (New Delhi: Nature Morte, 2007), unpaginated (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 193 Figure 1.1 Felice Beato, Interior of the Secundrabagh After the Massacre, 1958, albumen silver print, 9 7/16 x 11 5/16 in. (24 x 28.7 cm.). J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 194 Figure 1.2 Margaret Bourke-White, Spindly but determined old Sikh, carrying ailing wife, sets out on the dangerous journey to India’s border (original caption from LIFE in 1947). The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images, 1947 194 Figure 1.3 Sheba Chhachhi, Shardabehn – Public Testimony, Police Station, Delhi, 1988, printed 2014, gelatin silver print on paper, 776 x 519 mm. Seven Lives and a Dream, Tate Collection, London (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 195 Figure 1.4 Sheba Chhachhi, Sathyarani – Anti Dowry Demonstration, Delhi, 1980, printed 2014, gelatin silver print on paper, 386 x 567 mm. Seven Lives and a Dream, Tate Collection, London (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 195 Figure 1.5 Sheba Chhachhi, Urvashi—Staged Portrait, Gulmohar Park, Delhi, 1980, printed 2014, gelatin silver print on paper, 522 x 783 mm. Seven Lives and a Dream, Tate Collection, London (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 196 Figure 1.6 Sheba Chhachhi, Shanti—Staged Portrait, Dakshinpuri, Delhi, 1991, printed 2014, gelatin silver print on paper, 777 x 517 mm. Seven Lives and a Dream, Tate Collection, London (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 196 Figure 1.7 Sheba Chhachhi, Devikripa—Staged Portrait, Seemapuri, Delhi, 1990, printed 2014, gelatin silver print on paper, 769 x 515 mm. Seven Lives and a Dream, Tate Collection, London (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 197 Figure 1.8 Sheba Chhachhi, Shahjahan Apa—Staged Portrait, Nangloi, Delhi, 1991, printed 2014, gelatin silver print on paper, 785 x 521 mm. Seven Lives and a Dream, Tate Collection, London (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 197 vii Figure 1.9 Sheba Chhachhi, Sathyarani—Staged Portrait, Supreme Court, Delhi, 1990, printed 2014, gelatin silver print on paper, 772 x 516 mm. Seven Lives and a Dream, Tate Collection, London (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 198 Figure 1.10 Sheba Chhachhi, Sathyarani – Staged Portrait, Punjabi Bagh Residence, Delhi, 1990, printed 2014, gelatin silver print on paper, 382 x 568 mm. Seven Lives and a Dream, Tate Collection, London (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 198 Figure 1.11 Top: Lakshmi soon after marriage, bottom: Burned because her parents could not afford ‘enough’ dowry. Photograph reproduced from: Mahila D. Samiti, “Burning of the Brides,” New Internationalist Magazine, November 1979, Oxford: New Internationalist Publications Limited 199 Figure 1.12 Sheba Chhachhi, Shahjahan Apa—Anti Dowry Public Testimonies, India Gate, Delhi, 1986, printed 2014, gelatin silver print on paper, 381 x 568 mm. Seven Lives and a Dream, Tate Collection, London (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 199 Figure 1.13 Sheba Chhachhi, Wild Mother I: The Wound is The Eye, 1993, 3 terracotta sculptures; 9 terracotta tablets; hand-tinted silver gelatin prints; found images; turmeric; pigment; sand, 3.5 x 2.1 x 2.5 m 200 Figure 1.14 Sheba Chhachhi, Subhadra. Photograph reproduced from: Women of the Cloth: Photographic Conversations (New Delhi: Nature Morte, 2007), unpaginated. (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 200 Figure 1.15 Sheba Chhachhi, Subhadra. Photograph reproduced from: Women of the Cloth: Photographic Conversations (New Delhi: Nature Morte, 2007), unpaginated. (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 201 Figure 1.16 Sheba Chhachhi, Subhadra. Photograph reproduced from: Women of the Cloth: Photographic Conversations (New Delhi: Nature Morte, 2007), unpaginated. (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 201 Figure 1.17 Sheba Chhachhi, Untitled, from Initiation Chronicle section. Photograph reproduced from: Women of the Cloth: Photographic Conversations (New Delhi: Nature Morte, 2007), unpaginated. (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 202 Figure 1.18 Sheba Chhachhi, Untitled, from Initiation Chronicle section. Photograph reproduced from: Women of the Cloth: Photographic Conversations (New Delhi: Nature Morte, 2007), unpaginated. (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 202 Figure 1.19 Sheba Chhachhi, Untitled, from Initiation Chronicle section. Photograph reproduced from: Women of the Cloth: Photographic Conversations (New Delhi: Nature Morte, 2007), unpaginated. (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 203 viii Figure 1.20 Sheba Chhachhi, Untitled, from Initiation Chronicle section. Photograph reproduced from: Women of the Cloth: Photographic Conversations (New Delhi: Nature Morte, 2007), unpaginated. (Copyright Sheba Chhachhi) 203 Figure 1.21 Sheba Chhachhi, Untitled, from Initiation Chronicle section. Photograph reproduced from: