Alliance Française de Delhi Learn French, Delf-Dalf Exam, Indo-French Cultural Events
Category: Exhibition
Photographs by Rahaab Allana
Preview: Friday, April 9, 6.30 p.m.
The images are meant as inscriptions of the imaginary on the real.
For the artist, the camera has always served to document a rupture, the ‘illusory’ nature of being only in one place, at one time. Therefore, in order to distil and appreciate all that grounds our perception of time, we lead two or more lives at any given moment.
The world seems to sidestep ones understanding of it in many ways; it changes momentarily, allowing us to connect with disparate experiences, beyond geographical constraint. This is where the exhibition situates itself, in ‘dislocation’ and the comfort of being relocated through memories, recollections and images.
Space and time meld into a complex notion of the past, a world made of assorted motifs, signs and spaces. This layering of the present, the ability to fashion it to the demands of our own awareness is what creates this exhibition in compositions of mainly two, dual realities.
The comparative exercise of ‘seeing’ the world in terms of an image, at times, random images that share little proximity to one another is part of the attempt at rediscovering space. It is about being able to find stillness, disarray, and even at times, beauty… where people and places unite through the differentials of emotion and the playfulness of images.
In the early years, working mainly with a Nikkormat, 1968, full metal body camera, with manual settings only, has also been liberating from the profuseness of digital cameras. The photographs have mainly been shot between the age of 19 and 27.