We are so delighted to invite you to the next instalment of our 2021-2022 Global Photographies Network Talks Programme! This time, we’ll be hearing from Rahaab Allana, Tanvi Mishra and Philippe Calia with their talk on PIX and the South Asian Imaginary.
As PIX— conceived and launched in 2009/10 as a quarterly— now completes its 20th publication and 18th issue-based volume this March, we look back at the last decade and the trajectories this contemporary archive has charted over this time. Initially conceived as a discursive and exhibitionary exploration mapping contemporary photography and histories of the medium in South Asia, PIX has evolved over the years as a participatory editorial practice, a publishing platform and an avenue for critical discourse on the image and associated practices through an open-call and commissioned/nominated pieces.
While the notion of South Asia/n served as a broad contour for research and approach, the examination of this identity led to dialogues beyond physical borders and nationalities ascribed through governments and regimes. Instead, lens-based practitioners and independent authors’ response to the themes of each issue presented micro-histories, fictionalised trajectories and broadly, surveys of contemporary concerns and definitions of identity, belonging and citizenship. Over the course of building this transnational space, we question what it means to be a South Asian, and how that shapes the narratives that emerge from within/without.
The latest issue, Passages: a subcontinental imaginary, seeks to address ways of expanding and globalising this South Asian representation by consolidating diasporic community perspectives in order to introspect around the politics of framing visual histories. The image and text contributions seek to recalibrate the politically bound arena of South Asia into creative socio-cultural formations and links, further investigating new cultural histories in our present. With South Asian communities spread across the world, we consider the entanglements of memory and space as tethered to ongoing migrations, to make visible a South Asia beyond its borders.
Rahaab Allana is Curator, Alkazi Foundation for the Arts; Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society (London), a Charles Wallace awardee, and is currently on the advisory board for art and culture of Asia Society (India). He also serves on the advisory of the Trans-Asia Photography (TAP) Review; is the Founding Editor of PIX Founder of the ASAP/art app and Guest Editor of Aperture Magazine’s 2021 summer issue on lens-based culture related to Delhi. He is the lead curator for photography for Bonjour India 2022, the festival of France in India.
Tanvi Mishra works with images as a photo editor, curator, and writer. Until recently, she was the Creative Director of The Caravan, a journal of politics and culture published out of Delhi. She has been part of the editorial team of PIX since 2011. She is a co-curator for the upcoming BredaPhoto Biennial in 2022. She has served on multiple juries, including World Press Photo, Chennai Photo Biennale Awards and the Catchlight grant. She has also been a mentor for the Women Photograph program and is part of the first international advisory committee of World Press Photo.
Philippe Calia (b.1985, Paris) is an artist, photographer and filmmaker who has been living and working in India since 2011. His work has been awarded, exhibited internationally and is held in private collections. Since 2013, Calia has been collaborating with PIX as a photo editor. Between 2015 and 2020, he co-directed BIND, a platform for photobooks in India with a public library.
Time: 07:00 Mexico City / 08:00 New York, Bogotá / 10:00 Buenos Aires / 13:00 London / 14:00 Lagos / 14:00 Paris, Gothenburg, Budapest / 15:00 Cape Town / 15:00 Beirut / 18:30 Mumbai / 19:00 Dhaka / 20:00 Jakarta, Bekasi / 21:00 Singapore, Taipei / 22:00 Tokyo / 00:00 (+1) Melbourne / 02:00 (+1) Wellington
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