Touching Light, presented by Kolkata Centre for Creativity along with Museo Camera, aimed to trace two centuries of material practices and cultural legacy of analogue visual culture. Black-and-white photographs of celebrities by Pradeep Chandra were mysteriously placed, with Sanjay Dutt between Dilip Kumar and Pandit Ravi Shankar. Weightier material included scenes from railway stations, dhobi ghat, and exquisite shots of India’s dacoits by Prashant Panjiar. Regrettably, there were only three women photographers in the exhibition.
The apex of the exhibition were analogue photographs by Kulwant Roy; the Beauties of Lucknow from the nineteenth century by Darogha Abbas Ali; portraits from the Oudh court and carte de visite by Bourne & Shepherd. Serena Chopra’s Dorji with her son by their Kitchen Hearth in Rukha Village (picture) was quietly arresting. Prabir Purkayastha’s work invited the most contemplation. While the execution did not match the ambition of the exhibition, the richness of the works certainly did.
