IMAGE WORLDS: HYBRIDITY

Join us for the second iteration of Image Worlds!

OPEN TO ALL.

This international symposium observes the bicentennial of photography by invoking a remarkable journey – from Ibn al-Haytham’s (the father of modern optics) 10th-century conception of the ‘qamra’ (moonlit chamber) to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s grainy 19th-century heliotype—a 900-year trajectory. Through an immersive engagement with contemporary cultural producers, we use the conceptual pivot of ‘hybridity’ to reflect on evolving practices, genealogies and paradigms of image cultures as well as scripto-visual landscapes.

As Homi Bhabha has noted: “All forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity… the importance of hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges; rather, hybridity is the ‘third space’ which enables other positions to emerge.” And it “gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognisable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation.”

Looking outward at the framed world, and inward at the self – artists, curators, writers and theorists will discuss the emergent aesthetic logics, methods, textures and registers offered through a spectrum of cross-media work. We will examine the diverse splittings and doublings, mirrorings and inversions, tensions and torsions, the whispers and silences – as well as the zoom-ins and zoom-outs – that catalyse and redefine what images can be.

Stay tuned for updates and a detailed schedule!

The symposium is co-organised by PhotoSouthAsia and the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts. It is presented in association with ASAP|art, Offset Projects and the Maze Collective Studio; supported by the Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation, Pro Helvetia New Delhi and the British Council. We are extremely honoured to have the collateral partners of Aperture and the International Centre of Photography (New York). Our thanks to the India Art Fair as Outreach Partner and the IIC as gracious hosts, for the second year running.

We would like to extend our special thanks to Mr Florent Mangin for his support.

PARTICIPANTS

Adwait Singh | Afrah Shafiq | Anjali Monteiro | Arko Datto | Brendan Embser | Duncan Forbes | Hannah Darabi | Indu Antony | Jiwon Lee | K.P. Jayasankar | Laura El-Tantawy | Mila Samdub | Naeem Mohaiemen | Nandan Ghiya | Pascal Beausse | Per Gylfe | Pradeep Dalal | Rahee Punyashloka | Ranjit Hoskote | Rasha Salti | Rashmi Sawhney | Shai Heredia | Sheelasha Rajbhandari | Sneha Ragavan | Yumna Al-Arashi

ORIENTATION

Amar Kanwar | Gauri Gill | Pooja Sood | Radhika Saraf | Ranjit Hoskote

CONVENERS

Rahaab Allana | Anshika Varma | Ashish Sahoo