Glass Eye: A Podcast on Visual Culture from South Asia

Adira Thekkuveettil, Akshay Mahajan, Kaamna Patel
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‘Glass Eye: A Podcast on Visual Culture from South Asia’ talks to photographers, critics, publishers, educators and other professionals contributing to the evolution of contemporary visual culture, exploring the ways in which images shape our understanding of South Asia. Hosted by three visual artists - Adira  Thekkuveettil, Akshay Mahajan & Kaamna Patel - it delves into the story of photographic practice in South Asia, exploring its unique concerns, vocabulary, and possible trajectories. This podcast has been made possible by  PhotoSouthAsia & by Art South Asia Project's publications grant.  Sound Design & Editing : Rahul NadkarniArtwork: Pavithra Ramanujam

Episodes

  1. Glass Eye Episode 4: What Is A Photobook? with Lesley Martin & Varun Nayar

    05/01/2025

    Glass Eye Episode 4: What Is A Photobook? with Lesley Martin & Varun Nayar

    Send us a text In 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-episodes 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 JOJO Special 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.

    1h 19m
  2. Glass Eye Episode 3: Active Listening with Gauri Gill

    03/04/2024

    Glass Eye Episode 3: Active Listening with Gauri Gill

    Send us a text 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 - 15:42 Before 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 - 18:55 We (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 - 24:25 It 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 mo 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 JOJO Special 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.

    1h 8m
  3. Episode 2: Family to Nation

    12/04/2023 · BONUS

    Episode 2: Family to Nation

    Send us a text 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 Furqan Arif 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. 2:05 Dori and People of Clay  3:52 Arif Furqan   4:04  JIPFEST 4:49 Family to Nation 5:22 President Sukarno's speech at the Bandung Conference (1955)  13:18 Indonesian Massacre and Coup of 1965 15:44 Abri Masuk Desa - Endang S Taurina (1982) 22:09 Vernacular Social Club 22:20 Photo Vault Podcast 22.36 JOJO Library  23:12 Indonesian 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 JOJO Special 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.

    25 min
  4. Glass Eye Episode 1: Kodak Women

    08/30/2023

    Glass Eye Episode 1: Kodak Women

    Send us a text 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=x4i5r8O9EJ4 Kodak 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-singh 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 JOJO Special 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.

    29 min
  • 4 Episodes

About

‘Glass Eye: A Podcast on Visual Culture from South Asia’ talks to photographers, critics, publishers, educators and other professionals contributing to the evolution of contemporary visual culture, exploring the ways in which images shape our understanding of South Asia. Hosted by three visual artists - Adira  Thekkuveettil, Akshay Mahajan & Kaamna Patel - it delves into the story of photographic practice in South Asia, exploring its unique concerns, vocabulary, and possible trajectories. This podcast has been made possible by  PhotoSouthAsia & by Art South Asia Project's publications grant.  Sound Design & Editing : Rahul NadkarniArtwork: Pavithra Ramanujam

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