Dayanita Singh wants to be like Alice in Wonderland and keep saying: “Curiouser and curiouser.”
The ace artist-photographer wants to constantly surprise herself with ideas, people and places. Chance, a recurring motif in Dayanita, is that unopened door that makes her veer off the beaten track to explore new paths that lead on to new doors and so on. “Making a photograph is no longer enough for me. I have done that for 30 years. I am exploring different ways in which I can share the image.”
For Dayanita, it is the book form that is at the heart of her practice because there is no one between her and the reader. Her quest in search of new ways to share the image created the ‘mobile museums’. “I have designed these large wooden structures that can be put up in different ways. They have flaps, storage spaces and can be folded, arranged and opened in various ways. I feel they are very close to architecture and that is why I call that ‘photo architecture. My interest in architecture has grown. In fact, that is what brings me to Thiruvananthapuram,” she says.
To be precise, it is Laurie Baker’s buildings that have brought her to the city. She is exploring Baker’s buildings for her project for the Kochi Muziris Biennale (KMB). Her collection of works includes ‘museums’ on “files, books, furniture, little ladies, including one that my mother, Noni Singh, clicked of me as a baby”.
The artist-photographer says it is serendipity and conversations that inspire her works. At one point of time, she decided to step out of the stifling brackets of categories.
“Why should one work in series? Who decides what is a museum and what should be archived? In India, everything can be made into a museum, for instance, a museum of bangles, one of saris… it is up to us to decide. These are all signs of life. I might pause my work on buildings and showcase a wall full of utensils…Yesterday was a perfect example of conversations shaping my day,” she says, her bespectacled eyes gleaming with enthusiasm.
During her visit to the Centre of Development Studies campus to study Baker’s building, she met someone who felt she should take a look at the utensils of Attukal temple. A visit to the temple led the way to utensils used in the temple’s kitchens. From there, she went to the State Public Library, to Chala Bazaar and to two shops selling utensils, including urulis. Her search for batteries for her camera took her to a small shop where she met a collector of watches and cameras. “I am going to his house today. Now that is what I said about doors being unlocked in your head. If you don’t take that path, that is lost, perhaps forever. But if you enter that door, it is sure to take you to interesting vistas,” she says.
Her coffee grows cold as she expands on what motivates her to travel, to explore and to reach for her camera to freeze a moment in space and time. The 53-year-old says her experience of over three decades has given her the confidence to decide on her subjects and themes.
Two of her favourite spaces are libraries and archives because she loves paper. She visited the binding section of the State Public Library to document it for posterity. Lavishing praise on the librarian of the State Public Library, she says: “Everywhere, archivists and librarians are a special breed of people. They are such undervalued people, they are our record keepers. Against all odds, they work with such devotion. They have a personal connection with their work.”
A great admirer of books music and films, she says that all these have a palpable influence when one is planning a project. “For instance, how can I think of Kerala without thinking of Aravindan? When I see Baker’s buildings, his goodness is evident in each of them. He is an artist, a philosopher,” she muses.
Her only regret, she confides, is not meeting Baker and studying under him. As if to make up for that loss, Dayanita is busy making pictures of his buildings – of houses, libraries and public spaces.
But, as is her wont, she is not sure if that is what her project will be on. “There will be one on architecture but there might be others too. My plans are fluid and that is what I like about the KMB, which is also organised by artists. Jitish Kallat, the curator of the KMB, lets me keep it fluid without trying to impose anything on the artist,” she emphasises.
She wonders how one should or could stick to one idea when “our mind does not work like that. It works at so many levels. That is the way I want to work,” she avers.
Hoping to bring the exhibition to the city, she says what reaches the city might not be the same as in Kochi. “I like to meld and add and take away from my works to keep it fresh and alive,” she says.
“Called the ‘Museum of chance’, I might portray it as my trip to the city unfolded or it might be something else. Poets gather experience from every place they go to and then distil the essence in their poetry,” she says.
Poetry in images that conjure up stories and vignettes of times past and present. Dayanita is certainly a poet whose camera writes haikus and poems with light.
Tips from an ace
“Do you know why impoverished people look so defenceless when they are photographed? That is because many photographers tend to treat their subjects as objects. They never ask them how they would like to be photographed. That is why many Instagram photos that we see now are much better than those clicked by so called professionals. There has to be empathy. I always tell students of photography to read, listen to music and watch films.
“Anyone can take photographs if they understand light and background ."
Short takes
File Room, House of Love, Dream Villa, Blue Book, Sent a Letter, Go Away Closer, Privacy,
Myself Mona Ahmed and Zakir Hussain are some of her books that have become collectors’ items.
