MANAS DAXINI

Photobook: Zoov Gang

The word ‘Zoov’, as read in the book’s title was observed by the author in Kashmir when he saw the graffiti ‘Zoov Gang’ painted on a corrugated partition in Pulwama, a region 25 km from the capital Srinagar, impacted greatly by conflict. Daxini mentions how the word itself, perhaps derivate of the polysemous Kashmiri ‘zuva’ (loved as life), also refers to the cherished one. 
 
This photobook is a unique, intergenerational and interlocutory collaboration of the author with a young student from Kashmir called Fazil. As a neighbour and a pupil at the same school where he works, the book consolidates a two-year-long engagement which traces their individual perspectives – those of an outsider (Manas) and a dweller rooted in a traditional way of life (Fazil). To mark this collaboration, some of the spreads present diptychs, single images taken on a split-frame camera to recount both experiences of life as one, switching their roles as photographer/guide.

Manas Daxini is a queer artist and a language teacher currently based in south Kashmir, working as an on-ground project manager for an educational fellowship. He has a keen interest in analogue mediums of writing, photography and illustration.