The exhibition Home and Away between September 13 and October 11, 2014. The show is curated by the acclaimed photographer and curator Sunil Gupta, and brings together a group of Indian and international photographers. Photography as a medium is intrinsically tied to the past. It is most inextricably linked to its role as documentary evidence, as stand-in for that which was once before the camera lens. This holds true from its earliest beginnings when it captured the view outside the photographer’s window in Paris to the present where the ubiquitous presence of a digital camera-phone has turned everyone into photographers. That image lingers in our mind, reminding us of something. A something that over time turns familiar and reassuring. Sometimes it is not even the event or place in front of the lens but merely the hint in the image of an earlier memory. A remembered image. And even as one’s capacity to remember text based factual information fades, one can still recall the image and the gaze.
The family, and particularly the photo album reconstruction of it, has played a large part in our memories of home. However, for most of us the yearning to get away to experience other things and perhaps the act of growing up means a break from those mythical comforts. Having left, we often feel like reversing the journey, to return home. But as Agee has pointed out “you never really get all the way home again in your life.” In this exhibition we take a look at what eight photographers think about home and away from home. Without a deliberate bias, it’s interesting that the women are looking inwards to a domestic environment and the men are on the outside; either away or strangers in their own homes.
