PHILIPPE CALIA

The Visitor’s Book

Calia’s photobook submission titled A Visitor’s Book emerged from a long-term documentary project initiated in 2017 on viewership and museum-culture in India. This reality is visualised and presented through the narrative of a real/imagined visitors’ handbook. In doing so, this work explores different aspects of post-colonial institutional spaces, inviting us to look carefully at how works of art and artefacts are arranged and installed, while casting light on the idiosyncratic relationship that each visitor develops with the display of a certain cultural past and heritage.

Philippe Calia is an artist, photographer and filmmaker based in Bangalore. His first solo show, Lēthē was recently held at TARQ Gallery, Mumbai. 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.

SIVA SAI JEEVANANTHAM

In the same river

Jeevanantham’s photobook submission In the same river, highlights the role of memory and the act of remembrance in Kashmir’s resistance movement by re-showing family photographs of the victims of enforced disappearances. Based on his research and work with Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) since 2017, Jeevanantham’s editorial and arts practice reflects on the evolving uses of photographs, from the time they were first taken to how they are used in contemporary contexts. Placing his recent practice in the political landscape of Kashmir, Jeevanantham explores the importance of lived and shared memory in Kashmir’s fight for freedom/azadi.

Siva Sai Jeevanantham is a documentary photographer based in Chennai, India. He is a graduate of Photography Design from National Institute of Design (NID), India and has also studied English journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Jammu Tawi. Through his personal and documentary practice, he intends to create cognitive dissonance in human minds. His area of enquiry revolves around human conflicts and satire. Siva Sai’s ongoing body of work ‘Upside Down’ was a special mention in Umrao-Singh Sher Gil Photography Grant and he was also awarded the long-term photography grant by the Indian Photo Festival, Hyderabad in 2019 for the project ‘In the same river’.