Moving Still

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Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, “Sisters in bed,” circa 1932

modern silver gelatin print with selenium toning (courtesy of Photoink)

When photography was introduced to the Indian subcontinent in the late 1800s, the British used the medium to record everything – archeology, geography and people.

Gayatri Sinha, guest curator of Moving Still: Performative Photography in India, wondered if  Indians viewed the medium in the same light. “Did they see it as an instrument of record or did they see it as an instrument of play, theatre and subversion?”

Both, as it turns out. Moving Still, on view until Sept. 2 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, features over 100 photographs as well as video from 13 artists, arranged chronologically from the 19th century to the present day. Tableau portraiture reflecting – or challenging – societal norms is the prevailing theme.

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Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II, “Unidentified women of the zenana,” circa 1870

digital print from an original wet collodion glass-plate negative (Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum Trust)

Early photographs are both personal and informative. Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II, nicknamed India’s Photographer Prince, broke convention in 1870 by revealing life inside the palace. Unidentified women of the zenana, for instance, features two of his many wives, unheard of at the time.

Umrao Singh Sher-Gil’s Sisters in bed is also a historical record, in this case of his Indo-European family, but it’s personal too. Witness his daughters’ pensive expressions.

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Pushpamala N, “Sunhere Sapne (Golden Dreams),” 1998

hand-tinted black-and-white photograph (Shumita and Arani Bose Collection, New York)

Fast forward to 1998 and sculptor-turned-photographer Pashpamala N, who not only inserts herself into her pieces but builds them too.

“I work like a filmmaker where I ask other people to photograph me,” she says. “I direct the whole thing.”

Dressed in a gold frock and bouffant hairdo, she satirizes the fantasy life of a 1970’s housewife in her series, Sunhere Sapne (Golden Dreams). She calls her pieces photo romances and asks viewers to make up their own stories.

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Gauri Gill, “Untitled from Acts of Appearance series,” 2015-ongoing

archival pigment print (courtesy of the artist)

Photojournalist Gauri Gill also uses reconstruction to present multiple interpretations of reality. With the series Untitled from Acts of Appearance, Gill poses inhabitants of a remote village known for its papier-mâché masks, creating interplays between tradition, modernity and everyday routine.

Five video artists push the boundaries even further. The most complex work, Tejal Shah’s Between the Waves (Outer, Inner, Secret), depicts naked women swimming with unicorn-like cones protruding from their heads. They’ve morphed into animals, or humanimals, as Shah calls them, a commentary on the established hierarchy of living things. A smaller screen shows the women scouring a landfill.

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Tejal Shah, “Between the Waves (Outer, Inner, Secret),” 2012,

three-channel video installation with audio (courtesy of the artist, Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich, and Project 88, Mumbai)

“The work is really a continuation of her practice to really challenge social conceptions around heterosexual normality and what that means,” says Diana Freundl, the gallery’s associate curator of Asian art.

Using photography to create stories has a long history in India. There is also an affinity to Vancouver’s history of conceptual photography. The show extends our understanding of photography and social commentary, not only in India, but elsewhere. ■

Moving Still: Performative Photography in India is on view from April 19 until Sept. 2, 2019 at the Vancouver Art Gallery.