---------------------------------------------------------- ***** CHRISTMAS PARTIES 2002 *****
Dec 21 - GOA-LA, Los Angeles, +1 (714) 821-6168 Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a free party announcement Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/goa-net/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Goanet2003/ ---------------------------------------------------------- Goa makes prominent Indian photographer keep people out of her pictures By Frederick Noronha PANAJI (Goa), Dec 22: Living in a Goan village has shaped her art in unexpected ways, so much so that prominent Indian photographer Dayanita Singh has now surprised those familiar with her work by coming out with photographs that simply don't have people in them. Singh's latest photographs are black-and-white pics from Mumbai and Goa. She comments on her work, which go up on exhibition in the beach-village of Calangute December 23: "It's of spaces without obvious people, as though people by unseened generations. There are no people in the photographs, yet they are full of mental energy." "It is hard to describe one's own work. Hopefully, they force the viewer to make their own stories, rather than (play the role of) photographs that tell the whole story as one does in photo-journalism. (Thus they could be) more engaging," Singh told IANS in an interview. She added: I think they are quite evocative. But it's not always clear what they evoke." Until Singh visited Goa in 1999, she says she could "never imaging making images without people". But the change has been drastic. "Now I photograph clouds!," she says. Singh, based in Delhi, has made a name for herself in an otherwise male-dominanted field, by attracting attention for her feature and news-based photographs in capitals across the globe. A retrospective of the artist's work is planned at the Hamburger Bahnhoff in the German capital of Berlin next year, along with a book from reputed publisher Scalo, focussing on the same work. "My publisher and guide made the decision of the retrospective after seeing my Goa images. That's the kind of difference Goa made to my work," she says. In January 2003, the curator of the Bahnhoff is expected to come to India to choose some one hundred images for this show. Besides Kolkata, the lady-curator also is keen to visit Goa "to understand how my work shifted so drastically in Goa", Singh informed. In particular, Singh has been infatuated by the old world charms of a quaint village called Saligao, which lies just outside the beach-belt. Except in recent years when villagers have protested the large quantities of water being transported from here to the beach-belt, and the dumping of holidayers garbage nearby, the village has been mainly aloof from the hustle and bustle of the over-commercialised beach belt. ks "I don't know how (the curator) would understand the sense of Saligao without actually living there. I miss Saligao deeply," said Singh. Incidentally, her 'Goa work' formed a major part at a solo show put up in the Frith Street Gallery in London during the past year. "I think the Goa work will always be part of any major show I have," Singh argued. "Mostly people cannot believe this is Goa. (There are) no beaches, no colour, just little details, as though hints of something, not quite telling the whole story. So people get intrigued," says Singh. She suggests that someone could infact start 'architectural tours' in a Goa which is itself struggling to find ways to emerge from its current image of being a low-budget sand-and-surf tourist destination, to one which could claim its historical legacy as a meeting place for East and West, both in the past and possibly in the present. Over the past year, her book titled 'Myself Mona Ahmed' was published by Scalo. It covers 13 years of photographing Mona, an eunuch whom the famed photographer also sees as her friend. "The best part for me was that she (Mona) wrote the text for the book herself, dictated as e-mails to the publisher in Switzerland. So she decided what was told and how," said Singh. The much celebrated Delhi-based photographer also had a show of her work on the holy city of Varanasi (Benares) at the Ikon Gallery. These included images from the Anandamayee Ma Ashraam. Singh also spent a month as artist-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Her dream is "Inshallah" (god-willing) to one-day start a museum in Goa. Such tours, suggest Singh, could be a way for the interesting and sometimes grand houses of the region to pay for their maintenance. Some of her plans in the past were to work on the dream of a museum in Goa, a photo studio and centre "where I could invite peopl efrom different fields". Singh was at one stage also contemplating open air film screenings. "I also would have liked to make an archive of all the family portraits existing in Goan homes", she said, adding that her personal plans compelled otherwise. "Who can fight fate?" she asks. Singh broached the idea with the New York-based International Centre of Photography. They agreed to run their travelling courses out of Goa. "That's the thing about starting something in Goa (a historic city and now shaping into a tourist destination known globally). No one says 'no' to coming," notes Singh. Some of Singh's work is also shown in some of the big names of photography in cities like Munich and Florida. For the present it is "no India jamborees", as she put it. (ENDS) ======================================================================== Ongoing: Exhibition of paintings, Art Chamber, Calangute www.goa-art.com Dec 19-22: Gauri Divan's studio pottery, Rust, Aguada Rd Ph 2479340 Dec 23-Jan 7: Dayanita Singh's photo exhibition, Art House Tel 2276123 Jan 18-19: International kite carnival at Morgim beach, Pernem ========================================================================
