Shanghvi calls his latest collection ‘A personal record’ of photographs being exhibited in Mumbai.
Author Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi calls his latest collection ‘A personal record’ of photographs being exhibited in Mumbai.
What made you choose to explore Matheran through the lens?
I live there during the week (and Mumbai on the weekends). Matheran became the canvas against which I could think more clearly of things that had gone away, its isolation was an instruction. Matheran is where we spent our childhood summers, and to return to it as an adult, replete with old books and scars of love, with friends and to friends, this is an extraordinary gift from fate.
What, according to you, connects the photographs in ‘Postcards from the Forest’? Is there a singular line of thought that binds them?
Perhaps the disparate images from ‘Postcards from the Forest’ are united by a sense of loss, its acceptance, and haunted nostalgia. The photographs are as much a response to an absent friend as they are about the terrifying hold of memory over us. On surface, they’re a personal record of a small town I call home, a record of horses and ruined houses, of lost time and the threat of sudden beauty. But underneath, unsaid things loom like shadows.
What prompted you to take up photography? Was there an epiphany?
I studied photography at the University of Westminster as part of my MA. My previous body of work, The House
Next Door (2011), showed at Sweden’s Gallerie Kontrast, Mumbai’s Matthieu Foss, Delhi’s Vadehra Art Gallery, and at India Art Fair 2011. This year, Postcards from the Forest shows at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, and Seven Art, Delhi, in addition to a preview at India Art Fair. I refuse to suffer epiphanies at any stage in my life as the ones in the past were gloriously wrong; it is better to live in doubt. Photography was just another way of looking at life, with a degree of resignation as opposed to the interrogation that attends to novel writing.
In an age when almost everyone owns a digital camera, what really makes a photographer?
I don’t know. The process is certainly more democratic now. Perhaps what is not as easily available is a way of thinking about images, and the process of uniting
disparate images so they work together, almost as if an orchestra. It is also about securing an aesthetic, a
singular way of looking, and of looking away.
As a writer, would you say a picture says a thousand words... maybe that which even words cannot express?
I now believe a thousand words are too much. Therefore, stick to a photograph; barring that, head to the bar.
Do we see more photo exhibitions coming up?
I don’t know. I am unable to relate to writers who think of writing as a ‘career’. I do what I want to do to make sense of my life, and right now a small part of this includes photography. There are other things — cooking a meal, talking to friends, going for a walk — all this more important to me.
How about a coffee table book?
I don’t own a coffee table, and luckily know no one who does, so this might be a bad business idea.
When: February 18
Where: Sakshi Gallery, Colaba
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Next Door (2011), showed at Sweden’s Gallerie Kontrast, Mumbai’s Matthieu Foss, Delhi’s Vadehra Art Gallery, and at India Art Fair 2011. This year, Postcards from the Forest shows at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, and Seven Art, Delhi, in addition to a preview at India Art Fair. I refuse to suffer epiphanies at any stage in my life as the ones in the past were gloriously wrong; it is better to live in doubt. Photography was just another way of looking at life, with a degree of resignation as opposed to the interrogation that attends to novel writing. )
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