The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts is happy to announce the photobook launch and (travelling) archival exhibit of Sparseeing, a collaborative work by the winners of the 2022 Alkazi Photobook Grant: Joyona Medhi and Abhishek Basu.
Inaugurated in Delhi, in association with Offset Projects and supported by Tata Trusts, Sparseeing examines the polyphonic histories of community culture, specifically the Parsis, as illuminated through the archives of the Gazder-Bharucha family. Sharing a moment in the itinerant life of Mr. Keki Gazder, a mechanical engineer working for the renowned Tata company in Jamshedpur, Gazder’s profession takes him further afield to the industrial hubs of Birmingham, Brussels, and Belgium.
Composed as an absorbing diary, this new publication presents an amateur photographer’s evolving visual sensibility. Shaped by memory and chance, Keki’s journey is traced by the authors through material recovered from a small box of keepsakes retained by Varun Gazder, the protagonist’s grandson. Sparseeing thereby invokes that which is fragmentary, overlooked, and fragile, and is deployed as both method and philosophy by the artist/authors.
The exhibition will be on view till 4 January 2026.
Available for purchase at the venue
Original Price: INR 1300
Special discount on opening day: INR 1000
About the Artists & Discussant:
Joyona Medhi moves fluidly between writing, research, and image-making, exploring the ways in which photographs shape our understanding of the world. Based in New Delhi, she is a strong advocate for slow journalism, long-form narratives, in-depth reportage, active listening, and process-oriented inquiry. She now shares her field experience in the classroom as an educator in Media Studies.
Abhishek Basu works with fragments and extended visual narratives. His series Provoke Papers (2019) and How Green Was My Mountain (2017–ongoing) explore India’s coal regions, while Labyrinth (2015) and Passion Fruit (ongoing) trace the emotional and instinctual journey of the self. Alongside his personal practice, he works as an independent assignment photographer.
Suryanandini Narain is Assistant Professor of Visual Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research and writing focuses on photography, visual culture and aesthetics. Her recent scholarly work includes co-editing Framing Portraits, Binding Albums: Family Photographs in India (Zubaan, 2024).