If a picture is more powerful than a thousand words, how much more powerful would a poignant picture be, from a camera wielded by women whose voices are finally, deservedly being heard. The Indian Photography Festival is already drawing enthusiasts those who have been fascinated by cameras, lenses, photo-editing software and every other piece of paraphernalia that has made freezing impactful frames in all their glory. In association with the IPF, Alliance Française has put up an exhibition of wonderful photos picked as part of The International Women Photographers Award.
There are two aspects to the exhibition. To the connoisseur of photography — the trained eye — there are a couple of photographers whose work stands out, the quality head and shoulders over the others. There was Manyatsa Monyamane’s work, for example, which tries to capture ‘the historical value of the elders of South Africa, whose identity is intertwined with the nation today’.
There is the work of Constanza Portnoy from Argentina, whose monochrome frames capture ‘oblivion as the silent weapon of contempt and discrimination’ by freezing pictures of people like Jorge, born with a congenital malformation, and Vero, who has mielomeningocele, affecting her ability to walk. This documentary photographic project tries to inspect the behaviour of society towards disability. Alice Mann, who lives in London, brings the images of drum majorettes at Dr Van Der Ross Primary School, whose students come from amongst the poorest areas of Cape Town, infested by gang violence and drug abuse.
The second aspect is that the exhibition makes up with variety and great stories what it misses out in high photographic quality. There is Shu-Chen Chen’s work from Taipei, that tries to register the condition of Taiwanese motel rooms that reek of patriarchal holdovers and gendered codes, a wonderful prism through which to inspect things. Elahe Abdolahabadi, living in Neyshabur, Iran, creates family portraits, with the photographer using a white screen to decide what should be seen in the frame and what shouldn’t be.
Taylim Prince is a grade 6 pupil, and one of the more senior members, who has been part of the drum majorettes team for 5 years.
Rainy November pictures from Gaza, rubble, the aftermath of airstrikes and the noise made by the absence of peace stand out in the photos of Loulou d’Aki, who is Swedish and lives in Athens. The photo essay titled ‘Make a Wish’ looks at young people whose lives and dreams full of infinite possibilities contrast the situation in the Gaza strip. There is also Grape Garden Alley, a project by Tahmineh Monzavi, who lives in Teheran (Iran), where women with lost dreams and values have been captured posing for the camera. There is some effort to highlight the beauty of their eyes, their mannerisms, the way some of them smoked, their hands and their feet worn out by years of hardship. There was pictures by Estelle Lagarde from Paris, which captured the Jail House, part derelict, part eerie, trying to bring to the viewer claustrophobia one would experience inside the walls in all its menace.
The photos don’t necessarily dazzle or even surprise some of the more seasoned eyes, used to inspecting brilliant pictures over the years. However, the exhibition achieves one goal in all lucidity– helping the world share and empathise with the vision of women photographers who have seen things around the world, from Scotland to Iran, Gaza to Argentina, and now want to tell you those stories through their choice of cameras.
(‘The International Women Photographers Award’ exhibition is one display at Alliance Française, Banjara Hills, till September 23.)
