Artist's Statement
This Scarred Land: New Mountainscapes
by RAM RAHMAN
These new black and white photographs by Vicky Roy overturn all expectations of landscape photography. Made entirely in Himachal Pradesh, they are remarkable documents of the hand of man on what was ‘Dev Bhumi’ - a sacred land. Instead, we are presented with a vision of a scarred land, where man and machine are gouging the earth on a Himalayan scale. These are no landscapes of Nainsukh or Roerich - vistas of romance or mystical power. The Himalayas were most memorably photographed by Samuel Bourne in the 19th century. These photographs are updates on those pristine vistas. These are seen through the eyes of a cool modernist using the tool of the still camera.
When I saw the first images which initiated this series of photographs, I was instantly reminded of the 1975 exhibition at George Eastman House in New York -
New Topographics. As an undergraduate at MIT then, this exhibit and the work that it showcased of the ten photographers - Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, Henry Wessel, Jr., and Bernd and Hilla Becher, was being talked about, generating heated discussions. Here were photographers who were looking at the American landscape with a cool, unsentimental and detached eye and formal strategies - and it was obvious that this generation were seeing the effects of industrial and technological development on the American landscape with a critical eye, shaped by the social and political upheavals of the 1960s. They were a far cry from the vision of Minor White, who had founded the photography program at MIT. When I showed those images to Vicky, he was taken aback. He had stumbled onto a similar vision decades later in a totally different culture.
The famous photographs of the Himalayas by Samuel Bourne, made in the 1860s, were inspired by the visual traditions of British landscape seeing. Bourne was discovering the English landscape in India - a way to seduce the colonizers into thinking that a homely familiarity could be found here.
The Himalayas have been loaded with symbolism in our culture - the abode of Shiva, the source of the sacred rivers - all goddesses. These were the icy heights into which the Pandavas retreated after the end of the great war. Romanticized by Kalidasa, visited by the Beatles and by thousands of pilgrims every year.
When photographers extensively photographed the new industrial construction in India in the 19th century - bridges, railroads, ports - it was a part of the colonial enterprise - the development of a new colony to be settled and exploited. The photography of the new industrial projects after independence in the Nehruvian modern moment - the dams, steel factories, coal mines, railroad factories done by photographers like Sunil Janah or Ahmed Ali - were suffused with the positivism of the new India. These images were constructing the new nation - in which the worker and the peasant were heroes in the Soviet-inspired Five Year Plans.
It has struck me forcefully that Vicky’s generation of photographers are now seeing India through a different lens. There is a new criticality which eschews easy emotional traps. These photographs are also in richly toned black and white – avoiding the easy seduction of color. The reductiveness and abstraction of the black and white image reinforce the stark and almost beautiful post-industrial landscapes which are the Himalayas now. The misty vistas are clouds of dust from landslides caused by road building. The roads themselves scar in poetic loops over rocks and pasture. No human being is visible, only the marks of their enterprise. This is the poetry of India now.
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At the time of our
1:1 Interview with Vicky, he was asked this question about
The Scarred Land: New Mountainscapes.
PSA: What prompted you to go to Himachal Pradesh to work on the Himalayas? Please tell us about the ups and downs of producing this work.
VR: After having produced two bodies of work -
Street Dreams and
Home.Street.Home, some of the people known to me said to me that I was capable of only taking these kinds of images as I came from a Salaam Baalak Trust background, and that I would not be able to make any different kind of imagery. This troubled me and I shared this with Anay sir who advised me that I will move ahead in life, people will say these things and that I should focus on my work. I didn’t want to get typecast as producing only one kind of work. I wanted to be able to produce all kinds of photographic work.
In fact, I worked with artist Gigi Scaria in 2010, as I wanted to change my own approach in photography. He was at that time working on a project for the Venice Biennale and, in fact, he paid me for working with him on that, and that too quite handsomely, something totally unexpected. It was a great learning experience that helped me look at photography differently and helped me change my straight forward way of making images. It opened the way I was looking at images and the way I was making them.
I started my work on the mountains in 2012, at a time when I was going through some personal pain. I thought that going to the mountains would offer a change of scene and make me feel better. The first trip that I made was with
Chandan Gomes and all the photos that I made showed the mountains going through some pain. I revisited the mountains again and made similar images.
Many times I wanted to make images while I was on my way in a bus to the mountains but could not as I could not have asked the driver to stop the bus for me and I didn’t have the funds to hire my own car. So, I approached the then Google Managing Director, Rajan Anandan, who had previously invited me to give a talk at Google and had asked me to get in touch in case I ever needed any support for any project. I showed him about 12-15 images from the mountains' work and shared with him that I need to upgrade my equipment and travel to the mountains in a hired car with an assistant. He asked me how much I needed and handed me a check for the amount I requested. With this money, I was able to buy mountain gear and go to the higher points to make images. I am giving all these details, as I want to share that at every turn in life, whenever I have been faced with a challenge, there has been somebody or the other who was there to support me.
In 2014, Shahidul Alam got in touch as he wanted to show my work in an exhibition and I sent him my entire mountain work, he liked it and wanted to see more. I told him that’s all I have and that I could shoot more but don’t have any funds to travel. He transferred Rs 50,000 to my account and I traveled and made more pictures.
While I was already working on the mountain project, I went to Ram Rahman sir to show it to him and take his feedback. He showed me Lewis Baltz’s
Park City, which was a criticism of the 1970s real estate growth. He wanted me to refer to this work. And when Roshni ma’am at Vadehra Art Gallery agreed to do a solo show of this work, I told them I wanted Ram sir to curate the show, as he had guided me through the making of most of it, to which they agreed. I took a huge selection of test prints to Ram sir who made a large selection and then we had a meeting at Vadehra Art Gallery and shared with them the final edit and the size of the prints. He sent me to KNMA (Kiran Nadar Museum of Art) in Noida to see some Nicholas Roerich paintings and take photographs of them. He asked Rahaab Allana for some photos by Samuel Bourne that he wanted me to see, as he makes references to these works when writing about my work. Ram sir then went to Laxman Bhaiya’s (of Laxman Photographix) to make some large prints. Basically, he was totally invested in my work. It was wonderful to have him curate my show. It was a huge learning experience, as well.
