Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
Photograph © Sukanya Ghosh
The works in this series continue my ongoing engagement with photographs from the family archive. In these photographs, I find timelessness and a sense of 'place,' which is unbound, and of no specific geography. I have been playing with notions of time, space, and fictions to re-propose these images as newer narratives. A sort of ante-nostalgic movement, which twists the contexts by combining and layering different images. In doing so I subvert a recognizable image into something that is slightly displaced - something that defies the postulates of reality, as we know it. In essence, I am creating new geometrical associations out of a set of given assumptions. Thus, early 19th century holiday photographs become a constructed set of new propositions. I combine planes, lines of sight, grids, and angles to build a visual narrative, which encompasses within itself an engendering of infinite possibilities.
I have used both original archival silver gelatin photographs as well as scanned and digitally printed photographs here. The works (including the animations) are collages - palimpsests that bring together varied elements. They are assemblages, with cloth, wires, wooden frames, and plastic sheets - lifting the two-dimensional photographs into a three-dimensional - isometric - projection. The materiality of these works brings a heightened sense of theatre into the frames. The animation / optical collage work (Isosceles Forest) is a single channel loop of images dissolving into each other in a combination of animated gestures. Echoing mathematician Richard Bellman’s Forest Problem [Richard Bellman, 1955 "What is the best path to follow in order to escape a forest of known dimensions?"], the images follow segmented routes as if seeking out the best possible path.
-----
At the time of our 1:1 Interview with Sukanya, she was asked this question about Isometries.
PSA: What are the origins of your project Isometries?
SG: Isomteries is a continuation of my work with archival photographic material that I have been working with in the last few years. I have been creating works that use this material in a number of ways, exploring how I can push boundaries and contexts in my earlier work, such as family portraiture (Time Travel), or the idea of a leisure-and-travel photograph (Vanishing Point). In Isometries I reached a point where I was looking at the photographic material in a purely formal way - devoid of a thematic interest. I was interested more in using the play of images in various ways to posit new intersectionalities. A projection of planes and lines and inversions and topographies that are created from a hitherto fixed context. I began with a playful and artistic interpretation of mathematician Richard Bellmans's Forest Problem ("What is the best path to follow in order to escape a forest of known dimensions?"), which became a metaphorical starting point for me.
20 November
