Photography work in progress. 


How does one reconcile an ancient, living mythology with the current day political, religious and cultural flux of modern India?I have made photographs of Indians interacting with symbols from Indian mythologies and our national history within the sometimes decayed public space of museums. The photographs are captioned with extracts from Indian mythology or with lines from the photographic subjects themselves, both artifact and human.

Joseph Campbell the comparative mythologist famously wrote ‘Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths’. Myth equals a truth that cannot be explained by facts; a fact is utilitarian: It demands verification and replication. A myth can emphasize the beauty of human existence as well as the sacramental nature of life. I like to think that contemporary expression, artistic and otherwise, occur on the tip of the iceberg, that portion of consciousness available to the present and those present while most of the iceberg remains hidden in the depths, unseen but profoundly affecting what lies exposed. It is in hidden depths that a population’s mythology exists and influences. 

Myth is important to a culture, possibly more so to a recently colonized culture attempting a coming into its own as we can see from the various politico religious controversies occurring today. 
  
Mythology is the penultimate truth, penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words or images alone. 

In 'Udanta', I attempt a contemporary revelation of our times, an exploration of a 'wounded' civilization grappling with its past and attempting to create a future, using photographs of symbols and museum visitors, conscious of the fact that whole iceberg floats on, relentless and regardless, thus captioned with extracts from mythology, as myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world, more potent than mere history.



   

 
 
  
 
 

 



 


 

 
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