An ongoing photo exhibition at India International Center titled The World of Recycle, curated by Aditya Arya, displays works by nine artistes
A journey started in the year 2011 where curator Aditya Arya decided to re-focus the gaze of emerging photographers who were involved ion the genre of documenting a wide range of subjects and provide them a platform to showcase their work an dentourage dialogue.
The journey has finally culminated in the photo exhibition at IIC titled The World of Recycle, which displays works of nine photographers, curated by Arya.
“I firmly believe that photography in general and photographers, in particular play a seminal role in shifting the scrutiny of society by showcasing and highlighting critical issues. The India Photo Archive Foundation has been facilitating this very process by providing photographers a forum for visual expression.”
The photographs largely capture the daily lives of people on the streets. “As a young boy growing up in Delhi one voice which always excited me was that of the kabadi wallah and the Sunday kabadi Bazar at Jama Masjid thrilled me,” Arya said and added, “India has traditionally had a culture of recycling, orchestrated by the quintessential kabadi wallahs. However the magnitude and diversity of new urban waste creates new threats and the age-old custom of recycling seems to be fast fading. It is predicted that India is going to be the fastest producer of waste by the year 2050. Judging from the pace of urbanisation, we may well achieve this figure in the next ten years. Solid waste is mostly an urban phenomenon. A city resident generates twice as much waste as its rural counterpart and as urbanisation increases, so will the generation of solid waste.”
It worries him to think about the mess that we are creating around us. But he is thankful to all the participating grantees and specially mentions Shweta Pandey and Rahul Sharma for their contributions. “They stepped out of the conventional methodology and the comfort of the ‘Digital Zone’. While the world is celebrating the speed of digital photography, both Shweta and Rahul’s unconventional and creative approach slowed them down, protracting their engagement with their subject. The subjectivity and the objectivity in Shweta’s images have been converged by using the vintage photographic process of Cynotype. Images printed on old newspaper give a special meaning to her project by embedding the faces of her subjects on the very rags they collect. Rahul’s age-old technique of hand colored images, bridge the gap between fine art and documentary photography,” Arya explained.
The exhibition continues till April 11