A series of portraits collected from across Tamil Nadu will render a retelling of history and a reflection of local heritage at an exhibition opening here on Wednesday.
The portraits have been collected by researcher Zoe Headley and a team of French and Indian researchers from the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) Social Science Department.
The ‘Pondicherry: Heritage of Family: Tamil Studio Portraiture (1880 — 1980)’ show, presented by IFP in collaboration with Pondy ART will open at 5 pm on the IFP’s Beach Road wall for the public and remain open until March 24.
It is pointed out that as early as the 1880s, commercial photo studios had found their way into the bazaars of the Presidency’s medium size towns. Husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren walked into a studio, posed, and looked into the camera to be fixed and framed. These family portraits not only present a visual record of a family’s history, often showcasing multiple family generations; they also constitute a wealth of information on costume and Tamil social history.
The IFP team has been working to preserve this historical legacy as a digital archive in their library for public benefit. The full archive will be available for public access at the completion of the project.
The images that will be put up for public viewing are part of an ongoing project tracing the social history of Tamil studio photography and investigating the visual rhetoric of family portraiture in South India at the IFP headed by Pierre Grard.
The IFP has allied with Pondy ART to give the public an opportunity to sample the photographs so far collected, observe the styles Tamil Nadu photography studios utilised for the printed images and reinforce the importance of preserving this visual record of local heritage.
Pondy ART, created in December 2012 by Kasha Vande and supported by Andreas Deffner, Yannick Cormier and K. Muthu has been engaged in “getting art out there for the public in a non-exclusive environment.”
In presenting international standard photography exhibitions focusing around a theme of building awareness of the issues challenging India today, the Pondy ART team has adopted a method of challenging the traditional approach to exhibition installation by experimenting with venue, material, lighting and scale.
These family portraits also constitute a wealth of information on costume and Tamil social history
