Almost 70 years back towards the end of World War II, a US soldier stationed in rural West Bengal took out his 4x5 press camera and went off into the countryside to photograph. Who was heIJ Why did he leave his airbase to do thatIJ We’ve no idea. What we do know is that he created remarkable images. What is even more intriguing is how did these 127 photographs in a shoebox taken in 1945 end up at an estate sale in Chicago in 1987IJ
The recent exhibition that took place at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts showcases those exclusive pictures by the curators Alan Teller and Jerri Zbiral, who found the box while their stay in Chicago.
“When we saw the box full of pictures, we were clueless about who clicked them and where. It was like a big puzzle for us. We showed those photos to a group of my students who told me that these appeared to be clicked in India. In 2011, Jerri and I got an opportunity to visit India for my son’s music training under Pt ShivKumar Sharma in Mumbai. We took this opportunity to explore the answers to those photos. After a long research, we found out that these pictures were clicked at Kharagpur in West Bengal,” Teller says.
The pictures were not only restored but the curators also decided to hold an exhibition titled Following the Box. For this, 12 contemporary artists were brought on board to create their stories inspired from these pictures and present them through their art work.
These artists not only utilised aspects like time, culture, events etc and also used different art genres to create a make belief world like handprinted craft with narrative song, graphics novel, to serigraphy on the glass and computerised digital images and mix media. The exhibition will be on till January 31, 2016 and will travel to other cities as well in India.