Like personal archaeology

Sebastian Cortes’ latest work Sidhpur, Time Past Time Present looks at a place that has fallen off the map. It is also an investigation into the passage of time

Sebastian Cortez

Sebastian Cortes’ photography has the quality of drawing the viewer in, be it the narrow by-lanes of lesser-known cities, abandoned buildings ravaged by the rigours of time or his arresting portraits.

“My range comes from a process of life. My mother was a photographer; I grew up amid an atmosphere of models and studio work.”

Sebastian developed an interest in photography while at New York University film school. In 1985, he moved to Milan where he published his first book,

Luoghi Poetici , featuring portraits of well-known Italian poets. “A friend of mine wanted to do a project in which she would have access to poets. Poets have been read, heard or listened to, but never seen. She wanted the poet to produce an idea of what it is like to start a poem and what it means to be a poet. I became fascinated with the figure of the writer, of what it is like to associate the face with the words. I like to get into the middle of the projection. It’s all about using photography to enquire into how people live in their intimacy. I like to challenge a little by invading their intimacy, but I’m fairly graceful about it. The process is almost like personal archaeology, a more poetic approach,” says Sebastian, when he was in the city for a display of his photo series as part of Peroni Nastro Azzurro’s initiative to promote Italian artists. In 2004, he made India his home. His other noted work is

Pondicherry , a photographic tribute to a small town in Tamil Nadu that is an amalgamation of different cultures brought alive by Sebastian through stunning images. The world of lifestyle and fashion attracted Sebastian early in his career.

“I enjoyed the glamour of fashion photography. When you’re doing fashion, you are trying to initiate a desire, of being something more than the clothing. It’s like theatre. The photographer directs it. We become short-listed by the look, the attitude. It becomes obsessive. I started to feel uncomfortable with it. As I age, I am trying to move away from that frontline of desire. I am now interested in the passage of time.”

His recent work Sidhpur: Time Present, Time Past , to be displayed in the city, is an exploration of the traditional habitats and domestic spaces of the Bohra Islamic community in Sidhpur. “I discovered Sidhpur on a commission for a magazine as I toured Gujarat. I have always been attracted to cities or towns that have, for some historic, social or economic reason, fallen off the map. Sidhpur emanates the same kind of atmosphere that you find in abandoned mining towns in the American west, or cities in southern Italy that once had great commercial importance, then history moved on and left them drifting in the indifference of time.”

Sebastian says his work on Sidhpur involved a pilgrimage from house to house, adding that it was very much akin to the path followed by an investigator who looks for clues. “But I did not want to verify anything. My search is not to uncover but to record. My clues lay hidden in the two dimensional result of my efforts, which become objects of a bigger puzzle, that are more universal, more transcendent and speak to each viewer in a different way, as photographs must. The obvious, the domestic, the routine are elements that I like to explore in the context of an exceptional condition. More clearly, the psychological and metaphorical importance of rooms and what they silently describe hold my attention and I want to draw the viewer in to the pathos of discovery. The vibration of the empty rooms and all the surface information speaks to us about a people and their need to express themselves, the exteriorization of the soul life or personal values- the emblematic image of an age, a brief but rich moment of creativity and domesticated poetic fantasy.”

Sebastian says the lens matters to him more than the camera. “I work on a tripod. I work very slowly.” Like everything else, photography too has gone digital. Sebastian does not agree, though, the medium has necessarily sped up the process of photography. “With digital, things have actually become slower. It has made me more cautious with details. Within the medium of digital, I try to make my photography look like film.”

Speaking on the work of photographers and artists in India, Sebastian says, “I am a great fan of Dayanita Singh. Pablo Bartholomew has a modern outlook and is already on the leading edge. Dayanita is more traditional. Anish Kapoor is an international artist, but he is offering an Indian view because of the colours he uses. I would like to see Indian photographers work more on the social landscape, the ravaging of it. India is still more about editorial photography, not so much in terms of fine arts. There should be more focus on observing what’s happening in inner cities, transport, older buildings etc,” says Sebastian.

The purpose of photography, says Sebastian, involves engaging the viewer. “I don’t want to make a statement. I want to make an emotion. My photographs are more about warmth than yelling and screaming.”

Sidhpur-Time Present, Time Past will be on display at Tasveer Art Gallery, Sua House, 26/1, Kasturba Cross Road, from August 8 to August 28, from 10 am to 6 pm. For more visit www.tasveerarts.com.