10 | 12 US$ | 300 Rp | 8 | 1000

ISSUE 1 2011
CMYK by Roli Books
Indias rst Art and Design Concept Bookstore
A rst-of-its-kind bookstore in India, CMYK specializes in quality illustrated books.
The collection includes titles on art, design, photography, architecture, travel,
lifestyle, erotica, specialty cookbooks, fashion, gardening etc.


Opening
Soon
in Pune!
PUNCTUM NETWORK AFGHANISTAN REZA DEGHATI BANGLADESH SHAHIDUL ALAM CHINA WANG CHUNCHEN CAMBODIA CRISTIAN CAUJOLLE
INDIA SUVENDUU CHATTERJEE INDONESIA ALEX SUPARTONO IRAN NEWSHA TAVAKOLIAN JAPAN HIDEKO KATAOKA KOREA BOHNCHANG KOO
PAKISTAN TEHMINA AHMED PHILIPPINES VJ VILLAFRANCA SINGAPORE LISA BOTOS TAIWAN SHEN CHAO LIANG
2 | punctum
EDITORIAL STATEMENT 6
INCOMPLETE JOURNEY 16
SOUTH KOREA
Photographer Suyeon Yun Curated by Bohnchang Koo
OUR FACE ASIA 34
JAPAN
Photographer Ken Kitano Curated by Hideko Kataoka
SALT WATER TEARS 48
BANGLADESH
Photographer Munem Wasif Curated by Shahidul Alam
OUTLOOK 60
TAIWAN
Photographer Po-I Chen Curated by Shen Chao-Liang
DE RETOUR 78
VIETNAM
Photographer Loan Nguyen Curated by Christian Caujolle
BIRTH FOR WAR 96
AFGHANISTAN
Photographer Massoud Hossaini Curated by Reza Deghati
MARCOS CAMPAIGNS 112
PHILIPPINES
Photographer Jes Aznar Curated by VJ Villafranca
CONTENTS
AD
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INTIMACIES 126
INDIA
Photographer Kushal Ray Curated by Suvendu Chaterjee
CONVERGENCES 142
SINGAPORE
Photographer Wei Leng Tay Curated by Lisa Botos
MAY YOUR WISH COME TRUE 154
IRAN
Photographer Newsha Tavakolian
MEN, MOUNTAINS AND THE SEA 168
INDONESIA
Photographer Rony Zakaria Curated by Alexander Supartono
COLD SERIES 184
CHINA
Photographer Mimi Curated by Wang Chunchen
PILGRIMAGE 196
PAKISTAN
Photographer Omar Kasmani Curated by Tehmina Ahmed
COMPUTER LIGHT PORTRAITS 204
CAMBODIA
Photographer Sovan Philong Curated By Christian Caujolle
AFTERWORD 220
On not being a tree Aveek Sen
CREDITS 224
AD
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Ever since we decided to publish a magazine on contemporary
Asian photography, we have been grappling with questions to
which we still have no defnite answers: is there such a thing
as Asian photography? Are we not just captives of a semantic
convenience?
What we are certain of, however, is that photographic
representations of Asia, in the hands of European photographers
and shaped by Western media, has contributed to producing a
catalogue of stereotypes that simplifes and even suppresses the full
diversity of visual sensibilities that Asian photography is capable of
expressing.
As a consequence, Asian photographers lack a platform that not
only profles their work on their own terms, but also suggests its
profound link with native visual idioms. This is precisely the gap
that Punctum hopes to fll.
Punctum is not a magazine about photography. It is a magazine
about Asia that uses photography complemented by text - to
portray contemporary life across the continent, as understood by
those who live there.
We want to celebrate what is particular and exceptional in
each of the countries featured in our publication. It is possible
that we may encounter works that belong to an entirely different
aesthetic convention and appear wholly unfamiliar. And yet, it may
be possible that at that very moment, we come across something
that touches us, a connection of feeting empathy. It is a moment
that Rolland Bathes describes in his classic essay on photography,
Camera Lucida, as punctum.
To us, photography is a form of storytelling - and Asia is full of
stories to be told. So long as these stories remain untold, we will
still be reminded of that old saying: until the lions fnd their own
storytellers, stories about hunting will always glorify the hunter.
The Editors
EDITORIAL STATEMENT
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Quayola www.quayola.com
NOVA Contemporary Culture
March 21st to April 30th, 2011
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
www.rojo-nova.com
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Quayola www.quayola.com
NOVA Contemporary Culture
March 21st to April 30th, 2011
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
www.rojo-nova.com
AD
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AD
that neatly refracts reality.
It is an instrument for practicing cultural
engineering, the way we like to do it.
Cube is a multifaceted canvas,
for artists to proclaim their vision.
It is a social construction,
architecture of the mind.
It is two hands interlocked together
to form a shelter, a community of equals.
Peers that share, with no schedule, and no sale.
digital, graphic, installations, music, painting,
photography, sculpture, video, words.
A brand new exhibition space on CUBEmag.com adds
up to the 400 matte coated pages of the bookzine.
This is an open call, everyone is invited.
All submitted works will be perused and shall be
eligible for publishing, on line or on paper.
Come as you are
Cube is a prism
Cube is a building block.
Cube is looking for artworks:
Cube is expanding.
Cube is open.
www.cubemag.com
Hatcher Pass - Talkeetna Mountains - Alaska - ph. Andrea Bastoni
CUBE for Punctm.indd 1 22/12/10 12.16
16 | punctum
punctum | 17
INCOMPLETE
JOURNEY
2003-2006
SOUTH KOREA
Photographer Suyeon Yun
Curated by Bohnchang Koo
Way to Eden Garden Seoul, Korea
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Recycling Seoul, Korea
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Waterfalls Seoul Korea
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North Koreans have been crossing the border into
China in search of refuge since the height of their
famine in the 1990s. Seeking resettlement, the
majority of North Koreans transit through a host of
other countries before fnally settling in South Korea,
as the fnal destination of a hardship journey which
has taken years. Incomplete Journey was made
over three years and focuses on North Koreans living
in South Korea. The photographer employed North
Korean refugees as interviewers, location scouts and
directors of photography. Together, they worked to
locate the Korean War and its living social context,
nearly 55 years since the war had been stopped and
forgotten.
Text by Suyeon Yun
Speedo Seongnam Seonnam, Korea
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McArthur Incheon Incheon, Korea
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Friendly Fresh Fun Seoul, Korea
24 | punctum
Good News Koyang, Korea
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Like the First Time Seoul, Korea
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Megabox Seoul, Korea
Previous page Jesus Seoul, Korea
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Tourists at Museum Moonsan, Korea
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Hite Ansan Ansan, Korea
Previous page Living room Busan, Korea
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G.I. Jane Ansan, Korea
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OUR FACE ASIA
JAPAN
Photographer Ken Kitano
Curated by Hideko Kataoka
Facing page Piling Portraits of 30 Geikos and Maikos Dancing the Special Kyo
Dance in the Spring Miyagawa Town, Kyoto Gelatin silver print 2003
punctum | 35
36 | punctum
Piling Portraits of 35 Esoteric Buddhist Monks of the Shingon Sect
Studying at KOHYA Mountain Speciality School Wakayama 2003
punctum | 37
Piling Portraits of 39 People Floating Lanterns down the River Motoyasu in
Memory of Atomic Bomb Victims on August 6, 2004 Hiroshima 2004
38 | punctum
D
uring the last few years, I have travelled
around Japan visiting communities,
festivals, schools, places of work, families, sports
games and religious places and listening to
peoples stories and taking their portraits at
the various sites. This project has been to make
photo portraits called Portrait of Our Face of
the people in a particular group. Each photo
portrait has been made by evenly printing
photographs of the faces of people belonging
to particular groups on top of each other. The
groups include young girls in Harajuku, offce
workers in Tokyo, people on isolated islands in
the South, fshermen of Boso Peninsula and
others. The more faces get printed, the more the
contours of an individual become blurred and
the expression and age more ambiguous in the
fnal portrait, which I call Our Face.
The contours of the individual become
blurred in a Portrait of Our Face but it expresses
time and light, which should be unique to the
particular group. Needless to say, there is no
ranking of the cultures or people.
The project intends to link people of various
positions horizontally, without regard for rank
or importance, as if each one was a part of a
continuous chain. It is like a big circle of images
of people with no centre. In the future, I plan
to include people of Kosovo, Afghanistan, New
York and other places in the world in the circle
of Our Face. (The Portrait of Our Face may
seem like the average face of our generation
but it is not the intention of this project to study
and analyze the average face or roots of races.)
We frequently hear the word globalization
but is the world really becoming global?
Globalization sounds like a structure where
homogeneous people and a single ideology
exist centring around one centre such as the
United States or Tokyo. This structure seems to
exclude and ignore the people on the periphery
or outside of the homogeneous circle or those
unwilling to enter the circle.
There is no such thing as the centre in this
world. I imagine the world to be composed of
many localities. The aim of this project is to
help re-cast the meaning of globalization as
the accumulation of individuals and localities
by presenting the faces of people of various
positions and places. The portraits shown in this
book are the portraits of yourself and everybody
at the same time.
Text by Ken Kitano
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Piling portraits of 32 women in a farming village, Nairia Jessore Bangladesh 2008
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Piling Portraits of 20 women who are washing themselves in the River Ganges in Varanasi, India 2008
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Piling Portraits of 38 Singers of Kouta, or popular traditional songs originating in the Edo Period 2003
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Piling Portraits of 42 Members of the Baseball Club at OHMI High School, Shiga 2002
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Piling Portraits of 30 Geikos and Maikos Dancing the Special Kyo Dance in the Spring, Miyagawa Town, Kyoto 2003
44 | punctum
Piling Portraits of 23 female Muslims in burqa, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2008
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Piling Portraits of 32 men in a farming village, Nairia, Jessore, Bangladesh Gelatin silver print 2008
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Piling Portraits of 60 people of Nammatsu Town, participating in the Kishiwada Danjiri Festival, Osaka 2002
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Piling Portraits of 40 workers who are engaged in cargo-loading at Shador Ghat ferry terminal, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2008
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SALT WATER TEARS
BANGLADESH
Photographer Munem Wasif
Curated by Shahidul Alam
Munem Wasif VU Prix Pictet & Wateraid
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E
very ecosystem has its fragile balance.
That much we have already learnt.
Scientists routinely now seek to document
the excesses that will lead to imbalance, even
where they can do nothing about them. And
sometimes, just sometimes, legislation and
implementation and eventually protection
may follow.
In the far south-west of Bangladesh, Munem
Wasif shows us just what these abstract-
sounding paradigms mean in practice. Nobody
knows for certain why the water levels are
changing in the Bay of Bengal, but they are.
In a famously low-lying country, more and
more people are under threat of catastrophic
fooding. Coastal erosion, too, is accelerating,
a matter of grave concern in a country where
(under the pressure of population) every inch
of usable land is at a premium.
Munem Wasif found a region where
changes to a single measurable fact salinity
levels in the water table can be seen to have
affected every part of the matrix of balances.
Salinity has risen. The old agriculture is no
longer possible because the old plants simply
cant grow. Shrimping a new industry has
grown up, largely for export, using fewer
workers and threatening the livelihood of
many others. Shrimping in turn exposes
more land to salt or brackish water. Farmers
are reduced to occasional labour. Established
structures of work and the societies centred
on work change and break down.
Many people have to venture into the
mangrove swamps of the Sundarbans (a
national park on the Indian side of the
border, but not yet on the Bangladeshi) to
fsh or to collect roofng materials which
punctum | 51
used to be available closer to hand. In the
Sundarbans they are exposed to a terrifying
catalogue of risk, including attack from dog
sharks, crocodiles, king cobras and the Bengal
tiger. Women (its always the women) have
to go ever farther in search of fresh water.
New diseases become frequent, obviously
connected to all these changes, but not yet
provably so. So it goes on, a kaleidoscope of
interconnected shifts, not fully understood,
and not half predictable with accuracy.
Munem Wasif has not gone to this
blighted region to show us the abstractions
of climate-change experts or the theories
of macro-economists. Photography deals in
the particular, and this project deals in the
very particular. Wasif is himself Bangladeshi.
Not for him the fak-jacket, the adrenaline
rush, and fve hours in the red zone. These
are his people, although not quite in his part
of the country. The accent is different but
the language is shared. Wasif in fact rented a
motorcycle to complete this commission, and
when he tells you the names of the people
in the pictures its because he met them and
heard them, and knew them a little.
The pictures, then, are almost by defnition
subjective. Too much ink has been spilt trying
to work out when and whether photographers
tell the truth. These pictures are absolutely
personal to Wasif, absolutely his expression of
his sentiments. But that doesnt stop them also
being a remarkable and true document of
what is happening in the interplay of some
of the complex of variables in this corner of
Bangladesh.
Photography reads big and small. Wasif
shows you Johura Begums long arm reaching
52 | punctum
out to her husband as he dies of cancer of
the liver, that simple tenderness is the only
available healthcare in a village whose
population are in desperate need. Its a little
tiny truth, certainly. The husband died, the
woman lived on, widowed. The photographer
was there, he knows. But it is also at the same
time a complex of many metaphors. There are
many pictures like this because this scene has
been played out so many times all over the
world. Its a picture about infrastructure and
fnancing, too, as well as morality and ethics.
In another searing picture, containers of fresh
water are dragged on foot in boats through
clinging sterile mud. Shajhan Shiraj and his
brothers from Gabura, were told, travel three
hours in this kind of way every day. Stunted
trees, clear water only in the distance, three
men, three boats, and the keel-trail they etch
in the mud. Its not just a beautiful picture:
the irony of boats travelling so laboriously
by land with water as their only cargo is
unimaginably painful.
There is a powerful crossover in the way
pictures work. Read these pictures only as
little truths and they will wrench out your
heart. Read them as big truths and they will
drive you towards planning practical effort for
change. you dont need to know that Johura
Begums husband was called Amer Chan to
be moved to action by Wasif.
We read about donor fatigue, compassion
fatigue. Every viewer of these pictures will have
at some point the sense of having seen them
before. Salgado in the Sahel, just as shocking,
maybe more. Very similar in feel and tonality.
But it is not up to the photographers to
provide us with new scenes. As long as those
punctum | 53
scenes are there and look the way they do,
photographers will continue to show them to
us. Some people will look at Wasif s pictures
here and call them derivative, and theyll be
right. But it isnt fashion. There is not going
to be a new length of trousers this season
in the liver cancer business. Photographers
can only do so much. If viewers are tired of
being harrowed, tired of seeing these scenes
one shouldnt have to look at, perhaps we can
understand that its the viewers who need to
perk up their ideas, not the photographers.
Munem Wasif, for one, is doing his bit. Now
its up to us.
Text by Francis Hodgson, Chairman of Judges and co-founder
of Prix Pictet, the photography critic of the Financial Times,
and an art advisor specialising in fne photographs.
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OUTLOOK
TAIWAN
Photographer Po-I Chen
Curated by Shen Chao-Liang
OutLook Hong Mao Gang 2007
My interest in photography began very early, in
1987, when I was a high school student. I was a
member of the astronomy club and, therefore, got the
chance to involve myself in flming astrophotography.
From then on, I acquired some basic photographic and
darkroom-developing skills. Thereafter I continued
studying photography at university in 1992 with
Mr. Liu Yong-Tai whose erudite knowledge in
documentary photography, artistic photography and
natural photography laid great infuence on me. In
1997, when in graduate school, I went on studying
photography with Mr. Huang Jian-Liang. Under his
infuence and encouragement I read extensively the
work of many other photographers especially those
from the States, Japan and Germany and, hence, I
paved my own artistic pathway in photography.
In 2005 I started flming some fshing villages or
military dependents village where intensive urban
regeneration was underway. Seeing so many unused
buildings or abandoned houses through the lens, I
captured images of ruins and stories belonging to
previous occupants and thereupon I found myself a
source of the critique of civilization, the refection of
mass consumption and the ode singer of decadents.
The long-term camera-holding inficted CTS
(Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) on my wrist which led
to surgery in 2008 to get the compressed wrist nerve
removed. Even so, I am still obsessively engaged in
photography and since 2009 I have demonstrated
my interest through flming in Taiwan following
the impact of Typhoon Morakot, where I found the
vitality of Taiwanese society to be unbeaten.
Text by the Photographer Po-I Chen
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OutLook Hong Mao Gang
Previous page OutLook Hong Mao Gang
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OutLook Hong Mao Gang
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OutLook Hong Mao Gang
Previous page OutLook Hong Mao Gang
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OutLook Hong Mao Gang
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OutLook Hong Mao Gang
Previous page OutLook Tainan
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OutLook Tainan
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OutLook Tainan
Previous page OutLook Hong Mao Gang
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OutLook Sanjhih
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DE RETOUR
VIETNAM
Photographer Loan Nguyen
Curated by Christian Caujolle
80 | punctum
My fathers new passport fnally gives him the right to see
his country again. He often checks his pocket to make sure it
hasnt been lost, forgotten or stolen.
punctum | 81
At the end of the afternoon, my father likes to smoke a cigarette
and have a beer from the minibar. Hes calm and says nothing.
I take pictures. Its like he doesnt see me.
82 | punctum
My father, who had neither a nationality nor a
passport, did not go back to Vietnam for thirty-
eight years- because his close relatives now lived in
Switzerland, France and the USA; possibly because
he was scared he wouldnt recognize his own country,
torn apart by years of war; certainly because he feared
he would no longer feel at home there.
Then, in 2001, my father suddenly embarked upon
the process necessary to acquire Swiss citizenship.
One day he told me: When I have it, well go
to Vietnam together. A few weeks before his red
passport with the white cross arrived, I took him at
A family of three. There are only two of us because my mother died ten years ago
his word: I bought two plane tickets and organized
a trip that would take us through his homeland
from the North to the South in two weeks, in the
February of 2005.
We went back a second time, in the same year, in the
autumn. This De retour tells how I saw my father,
there in Vietnam: his fears, joys and the reunions.
But it also recounts what I went through and felt
myself. My eyes rested on my father, on the country
that is half mine, and on myself.
Text by Loan Nguyen
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Khiem makes friends with the people he meets during his morning
walks. After a week, his favourite moto taxi driver calls him uncle.
86 | punctum
This living room belongs to the woman who was almost my fathers
girlfriend when they were eighteen, just before he left. I can see on
their faces theyre surprised to have changed so much.
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Our guide is about 50 years old. Shes divorced and disappointed with men. Hes
been a widower for too long now. I wish hed take her back to Switzerland with us.
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I literally planted my father in this empty lot. As he waits for me to fnish
taking pictures, exhausted by jetlag, he looks as if hes growing roots.
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BIRTH FOR WAR
AFGHANISTAN
Photographer Massoud Hossaini
Curated by Reza Deghati
The feet of an Afghan civilian who was killed in a blast hang
out of a car where his body lies, in Kabul, 16 June 2007. A
suicide car bomb exploded near a NATO convoy in a busy
residential area of the Afghan capital, killing three Afghan
civilians and wounding fve more, the Interior Ministry said.
It was a suicide car bomb attack against a foreign forces
vehicle, the head of the city polices criminal department,
Alishah Paktiawal, told AFP at the scene.
All Photos AFP
punctum | 97
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W
hen I was born in Kabul, the war had
already begun. My country has been at
war for the last 29 years and no one knows
why!!? It started as a confict between the
Soviet Red Army and Afghanistan Mujahedin,
which gave way to a war between the Afghan
communist regime and the Mujahedin. Later,
infghting amongst the Mujahedin led to a
civil war, and this culminated in the Talibans
war against the Mujahedin.
Nowadays, it is a war between US and
coalition forces on the one hand and the Taliban
and insurgents on the other. What is common
to all these wars is the civilian casualties. Every
day, people die in suicide attacks that target the
international troops or Afghanistans security
forces. Attacks are launched in response to air-
strikes by foreign forces or the the operations
of the security forces that aim to gain control
over remote areas. Sometimes, IEDs are used.
The generation born during the war is still
experiencing war and nobody knows whether
their children will ever know peace or not.
Text by Massoud Hossaini
Top The bodies of four court offcials who were killed by
Taliban militants lie in a hospital room in the southern province
of Ghazni, about 140 kms (90 miles) south of Kabul, 01
August 2007. The bodies of four Afghan court offcials, whom
the Taliban identifed as judges, kidnapped nearly two weeks
ago, were found early 1st August in the same province where
Taliban militants were holding 21 South Koreans.
Bottom Afghan children play in front of their house in a
destroyed area in Kabul, 05 January 2008. The seasonal
increase in the price of coal and wood works as a tool to warn
war-weary Afghans that winter is arriving to make the already
poverty-stricken life of many Afghans more diffcult.
100 | punctum
Afghan commandos stand guard near a burning public market
building where clashes between Taliban-linked militants and
security forces occurred in Kabul on January 18, 2010. Five
people were killed and 38 others wounded on January 18
in fghting between Taliban militants and security forces, the
Public Health Ministry said. The death toll did not include four
militants who were also killed during the attacks, which lasted
more than three hours.
punctum | 101
US Army soldiers from 1st Platoon Alpha Company 3-187
3BCT 101 Airbourne take position during an early morning
patrol in Yosef Khel district of Paktika province on April 3,
2010. The United States has rejected President Hamid Karzais
anti-foreigner outburst as troubling and preposterous,
prompting a hurried effort by the Afghan leader to make
amends. Offcials said Karzai did not specifcally apologize
during a telephone conversation with Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton on Friday, but expressed surprise at the furore over
his claim that foreigners orchestrated election fraud.
102 | punctum
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104 | punctum
Previous page A US soldier (L) sits alert in a Marine Shinook
helicopter while fying over camp Bastion in Helmand province,
southwest of capital Kabul on May 3, 2008. About 3000 of
British troops with Danish, Estonian, Czech and American
troops are in Camp Bastion in the middle of the desert in
Helmand province, Southern Afghanistan.
punctum | 105
An ISAF soldier (R) warns journalists at the site of a suicide
attack in Kabul, 16 December 2005. A bomb exploded in
Afghanistans capital, near the site where parliament was due
to meet for the frst time next week, killing an apparent suicide
attacker and wounding two passers-by, offcials said.
106 | punctum
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108 | punctum
An Afghan security personnel stands beside a pile of burning
opium products during an offcial ceremony on the outskirts
of Kabul on June 27, 2007. Afghanistan, which produces
92 percent of the worlds opium, had until two years ago
exported the illicit drug almost exclusively in its raw form,
according to the United Nations Offce for Drugs and Crime
(UNODC). Sophisticated laboratories inside Afghanistan are
now converting 90 percent of the countrys opium into heroin
and morphine before smuggling it around the world.
Previous page Afghan mourners offer prayers beside the
coffn of Afghan man Amruddin,20, who was shot dead in
a suicide attack on the Serena Hotel, in Kabul, 15 January
2008. Amruddin was working as a guard at the main gate of
the Serena Hotel, the most secure hotel in the Afghan capital,
but the guards and gates did not stop a group of Taliban
gunmen from bursting in on 14 January, setting off a series of
explosions and opening fre on guests and employees.
punctum | 109
Afghan security offcers carry a mans body on a stretcher
from the site of a gun battle as fremen inspect the debris from
a blast in the Shar-e Naw area in the heart of the capital
Kabul on February 26, 2010. A suicide bomber set off a huge
explosion near an upmarket shopping and hotel complex
early in the morning, and police shot dead two other would-
be attackers, offcials said. Witnesses reported at least two
smaller blasts around the Saf Landmark complex as police
cordoned off the area, ambulances rushed to the scene and
sporadic gunfre was heard. Casualties are currently estimated
at 10, with 11 injured, a military offcer told AFP.
Next page In this picture taken in 2004 During the 10-21
day harvest in Sorubi, an area in the Kabul Province, Afghan
farmers pay children, most of whom do not attend school or
have other means of income, ten thousand Afghanis (around
$220 US) for cutting. 2004
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MARCOS
CAMPAIGNS
PHILIPPINES
Photographer Jes Aznar
Curated by VJ Villafranca
114 | punctum
SONG OF THE STEEL BUTTERFLY
Refections on the life of Imelda Marcos
Are my wings so because they were made
that way, or because for years they have been
beating against the bars of a cage?
Maybe I could have grown soft and dull if
I had chosen more contented bedfellows, but
like attracts like and shapes it too.
Knives lose their edge if they lie in the wrong
part of the house, but I have not lost mine.
Real beauty is never found in idleness, and
I may have been many things in life but I have
not been idle. I was not one to rust away the
years spent in exile, to give precious hours to
corrosive tears and wallow in yesterdays losses.
I am galvanised by hard times. Fire might alter
me, but it does not make me weaker.
We all of us have our colours painted on,
to have steel beneath the surface does not
render those colours any less true.
Brighter and bolder than most, I was born, like
the rainbow, out of sunshine and storms, but I
will not fade so easily.
The butterfy lives for far longer than a day,
and in one lifetime moves through many
incarnations
egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfy.
Trapped, emergent, trapped, emergent.
The cage could never contain me.
Perhaps Psyche dreamt of being a man, but I was
born a woman and am resplendent in that fact.
Common Jezebel or Painted Lady,
Some are designed to blend into their
environment, for protection.
I am patterned to stand out.
Sometimes there is no better disguise
than to be utterly conspicuous.
For all our charms,
there is a trail of destruction that can be traced
in our wake.
I do not pretend to believe that a wing beat
from me can set off hurricanes, near or far.
But I have been ruthless. I have taken for me, and
only for me. I have gorged myself and grown
splendid on the hard work of honest people.
One might say, you were young then, you were
not yet fully formed, yours was a raw, childish
greed,
feasting on everything that lay before it.
But I can still feel the appetite pulsing beneath
even this elegant skin. Desire like that never
really dies.
This is my confession.
Victory was given the gift of fight because she
dared not settle in one place for long, I know
that now.
And the test of character is not adversity, but
power, I know that too.
For today all I can do is endeavour to deserve it,
I do not know if I will succeed.
Many tropical butterfies have seasonal forms,
they change with the wind.
Some migrate over long distances, seeking
refuge, seeking a better place,
searching for the Promised Land.
I am constant.
Wherever my wings have taken me, my heart
is not feathered. It rests with one nation, one
people. There am I tied. But willingly.
Text by L.A.Stirrup. Born into the gloom of late-seventies Britain,
Loulou has been searching for the light ever since. Early years
spent in Paris gave her more than a touch of the wanderlust
which has driven her to set up home in a bewildering variety of
places the most recent of which, Delhi, still claims her as resident.
Studying English literature and language at university fostered
an already unhealthy obsession with the written word which
she continues to indulge in both her professional and personal
life. From advertising copywriter, to freelance writer and editor,
and a teacher of creative writing she has, in the course of her
career, been obliged to write on more things than had ever been
dreamed of in her philosophy. Happily these days she has greater
luxury of choice and is currently to be found inching towards the
completion of her first novel.
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INTIMACIES
INDIA
Photographer Kushal Ray
Curated by Suvendu Chaterjee
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My project on an extended Bengali family in Kolkata
began in 1999 and spans a decade. It is more of an
effort to explore relationships and intimacies that
the members enjoyed among themselves than any
perceived social documentary work on a joint family
system... Being very close to the family made my
work, to a large extent, personal and autobiographical.
Though I do not belong to the family, I lived with
the members as an insider-outsider for four years and
another six years saw me a quotidian visitor to their
100-year-old house which, during its initial years,
was a primary school.
During my long association I was a witness to
and participant in the joys, losses and fnally the
disintegration of the Chatterjee family. To chronicle
the gamut of the multi-layered manifestations of the
everyday lives of the 10 people of four generations
living under the same roof, took a long journey with
a camera.
When I frst came to know the family many years
ago, what attracted me was the true bond the members
enjoyed among themselves despite the differences and
occasional acrimony.
The large family was strong against the spectre of
disintegration during a time when the nuclear family
has become the most accepted form of living among
the middle-class The family revolved around Muni
(Shibani), the matriarch of the Chatterjees. She had a
son, a daughter-in-law, two spinster working daughters,
two grandsons, a granddaughter, a granddaughter-in-
law and a charming great-granddaughter, all living
together. The family had ten members, six year old
Teesta being the youngest and 89-year-old Muni the
oldest. Munis two daughters Manju (57) and Leena
(47) worked as college lecturer and personal secretary,
respectively. Muni had a superannuated son Amiyo
(71) and a housewife daughter-in-law Bani (57).
Their two sons Apurba (38, a bachelor and working
in an insurance company) and Amal (35, and who
had a letterpress). Amals wife Mithu (38, and
working in a boutique) and daughter Padmini (32,
and Teestas mother) who worked in car service centre.
Altogether they made the profle of the family when I
began my project.
The frst major change I witnessed was when Muni
passed away on August 21, 2001. She was 91
and for the last six months before her death she
was bedridden. During this period I was completely
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struck by the way Manju, now 59, and a year short
of her retirement from her college lecturers job, took
care of her mother.
Munis passing away was a personal loss to me.
I was never liked by my grandmother but Muni
more than made it up for me. Her concern for my
health was all the more pronounced after my frst
bout of tuberculosis. She always enquired whether
I was having enough protein intake and asked her
daughter Manju to offer me fsh curry with a big
Rohu piece.
Muni always liked to be photographed by me. Once
she told me, Now I am too old to have the wish to
live. But I want to live for your photography.
The following year Amiyo, the father of my childhood
friend Apurba who frst took me to this house, passed
away. With these two deaths the family shrunk and
then it was all the more evident when Padmini
remarried and left the house to settle down with her
new husband and her daughter Teesta.
In 2004 I fell seriously ill with a second bout of
tuberculosis and pleurisy. It was a resistant TB and
I had to spend many days in a nursing home. But
recovery was not forthcoming. Back at home I was
languishing and sinking. Manju Chatterjee took me
to her joint family household and took all the care to
help me recover. All other members contributed their
might to my recovery. I was almost adopted by the
family as I stayed there for four and half years and
did my photography.
When Manju was diagnosed with lung cancer in
April 2008, I was in turmoil and had to be treated
by a psychiatrist. She lived for another ten months
and underwent a very painful seven rounds of
chemotherapy and 30 rounds of radiotherapy. While
taking photographs of her fght against lung cancer I
served as her main caregiver. Throughout this painful
phase she never lost her calm and composure and
was hopeful of living for at least another couple of
years. She told me repeatedly that she wanted to live
to see my work get its due recognition. This project
was partly funded by her.
She passed away on February 17, 2009, aged
67...
Text by Kushal Ray
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I
have known Kushal Ray since the days when
he was busy with his work on Ladakh, in
Jammu and Kashmir. By that time, his work on
the joint family was at a formative stage.
Initially, apart from very few photographers
and critics like Shahidul Alam and Robert
Pledge, many were skeptical about his work,
Family Matters.
Kushal was not impatient. On the contrary, he
was very clear on the course his destiny would
take. And for this reason, he continued his work
for more than a decade without any recognition
or fnancial support. Eventually, Family Matters
metamorphosed into Intimacies.
Intimacies addresses us in the quiet voice
of a photographer, an artist and craftsman who
has long thought about his endeavour, who has
tested and questioned his own understanding in
the light of actual practice.
Both his work on Ladakh and on the joint
family from Kolkata are delicate and unusually
calm refections, but based in unwavering
conviction and dedication.
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I believe that every photograph conveys a
feeling. Kushals understanding of the dynamics of
the Indian middle class family is also not devoid of
feeling, that of human warmth. Intimacies is the
crucible of human values.
This introduction would be incomplete if I
did not mention Kushals new work on ordinary
class travellers of the Indian Railways. Kushal
himself has always enjoyed travelling in the
ordinary class, even on long-distance journeys.
This brings to mind Henri Cartier-Bressons
confession: Neither my wife nor myself like
to travel by air. You go too fast, you dont see
the gradual changes that take place as you move
from one place to the next (The Minds
Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers).
Kushal Ray has devoted his career to portraying
the gentle pace of gradual change.
Text by Suvendu Chatterjee, a Photo Editor and Director of Drik
India. He defnes himself as a social media entrepreneur and has
been working on media literacy. He shares his time between India
and the USA.
Suvendu Chatterjee/Drik India/ Majorityworld
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CONVERGENCES
SINGAPORE
Photographer Wei Leng Tay
Curated by Lisa Botos
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Cheong Cheong. In his early thirties, he speaks Cantonese,
Mandarin and Malay. He has a Mandarin rock band. Here
he is sitting in his studio in Penang, Malaysia. He is from the
Cameron Highlands (in another state in Malaysia). His father
was a principal at a Chinese school in the Cameron Highlands
when he was a child. The Tamil school had asked to borrow
classrooms from his father. His father agreed to let the Tamil
school use their classrooms. The local Chinese community
came down on his father and called him a traitor. His father
left his position as Principal and became a farmer.
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Hoi Yan and family Kuala Lumpur Wai Leung, a corporate
lawyer, and his wife Hoi Yan, a stay-at-home mother and part-
time graphic designer.
I
n 1963 Singapore gained independence from
Britain and joined the Malaysian Federation,
only to become a sovereign state two years later.
It is in the micro-history of these events, and
what resulted afterwards, in which Wei Leng Tay
dwells, with familiarity. Her series of portraits tell
stories on how lives were shaped, inadvertently,
by distance, proximity and politics.
The Border, its notion, both real and
fantasized, is present in the series Convergence,
which was photographed in Penang, Kuala
Lumpur and Singapore in 2009 and 2010.
These are places where the photographer
engaged in her project and conducted her
research, and where she blended with her
surroundings. It is a story of separation and
togetherness, of families that were never
reunited after political breakaway, and of
communities that are built in isolation.
Sometimes they are friends or relatives, but
not always. The storytelling power of these
images becomes amplifed as we listen to the
recorded conversations that are part of this
project. Stories about everyday life, about
family and triviality, that emerge from hours of
bonding, and sometimes result in a photograph.
Because, for all the cinematic quality of these
photographs, they are, after all, snaps of life,
slices cut through time, and maybe it would not
be appropriate to call those she photographed
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sitters, although they are obviously aware of
the presence of the camera. This is the portrait
of a community, not of an individual, so what
matters is the totality of the series that has
been built over two years. The complexity
of multiple languages used in the region by
ethnic Chinese communities is part of this
dialogue. Hokkien, Mandarin and Cantonese
are exchanged between different members of
the same family, and this adds a texture layered
to family relationships.
Wei Leng Tay has embarked on other portrait
exercises of communities. Other projects
have taken her to Hong Kong, Fukuoka and
Bangkok. The project in Bangkok possibly
Chris and Elsie Singapore Chris Ong and Elsie. They are
in Chriss parents kitchen. They both live at home with their
parents. Elsie is half Malay, on her mothers side. They both spent
a few years studying in Australia.
most resembles this series, as she focused on
the Chinese communities there. Wei Leng Tay
processes the idea of Otherness transforming
the Other into the familiar. This notion of
proximity is a fundamental departure in strategy
from the 90s, where identity became one of
the major themes for contemporary art. This
relentless task of becoming part of the Other
results in the disappearance of the boundary
between the photographer and the subject.
There are epic undertones to this project, when
we think of the near impossibility of success or
the almost unlimited number of possibilities.
It reminds us of August Sander with his series
Man of the Twentieth Century, although the
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Eldest Aunt Penang, Malaysia My mothers oldest sister,
78 years old, at her dining table peeling guavas. Her frst
language is Cantonese, and she also speaks Mandarin and
some Malay. She is at home most of the time. When she was
younger, she used to work at the family shoe factory.
German photographer pursued the anonymity
of his sitters, citing only their profession. Wei
Leng Tay, on the other hand, empowers her
subjects through their personal storytelling,
and as a result they become Karl, Pam, Shi Wei
or Jac to all of us.
Although there are no rules, most portraits
are taken in the domestic space, others are
images in workshops or in public spaces,
but even then there is a sense of privacy. A
psycho-geography sometimes emerges from
these encounters. This is the space of Gaston
Bachelard or Henri Lefebvre, as in Eldest
Aunts bedroom or in Graces ironing board,
where the domestic space is left empty but fully
charged with powerful, iconic symbols. For the
former, the bed sits perfectly done under the
looming presence of dozens of clocks. In the
latter, the iron sits on the ironing board. Some
of the most enduring images distill a sense
of solitude and isolation, of melancholy that
submerges the viewer into the depths of the
self. These are images that are a continuation
of a narrative. Like Shi Wei, standing in the
middle of the road at night, drawing us into the
solitude of the scene, the underlying tension
in the image, and the stillness of the moment.
Or like Karl, unfolding his collectibles in
an eerily tidy room, void of warmth and
clinically clean. These are stories that are
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developing in front of our eyes, and we regret
not knowing the end or the next chapter.
These are stories that evoke the memory of
endless ramifcations and possibilities. And for
all the closeness, there is a terrible detachment
in these stories. In many of the most striking
images light becomes a tool of the narrative
language, through a focus or multiple focuses
which build this atmosphere, as in Cheong,
where a bright neon light brings out clearly
cut shadows that contrast with the organically
random surface of his skin and that of his dog.
Other images show us some moving
tenderness, as in Eldest Aunt, which bring
us back to memories of Flemish painting and
Karl Singapore Hes in his temporary home. First generation
Singaporean Chinese, he is the youngest in his family and
the only one who was not born in China. Born and bred in
Singapore, he feels a strong cultural and ideological difference
with his parents.
domestic portraits. Here our gaze is directed
to her hands and her expression through the
centrally-based composition and perspective.
It is as stately as a portrait can be. In Felicia
and Adan the photographer makes a rare
incursion into the idea of landscape. Here the
shapes, the postures, and movements become
classical, although we do not forget that we are
confronting snapshots of daily life.
These images reveal the complexity of the
inner worlds that they represent. They show a
wealth of accumulation in intimate spaces that
defne the characters that we observe. They are
not sitters, but neither are they subjects, they
are more like friends. There is tension between
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Pam Malaysia Pam Yee, in the garden of her family home.
She lives with her family in a new gated community in Klang,
which historically had a large Chinese migrant population
because of tin mining.
the detachment and the proximity, between
the unfamiliarity and the deep knowledge and
understanding. There is a permanent questioning
of the place of the photographed through these
unfolded strategies. The photographer tries
to escape this fate by erasing and blurring the
edges that defne the artist as actor, as planner,
as director.
Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya is the Executive Director/Curator
of Para/Site Art Space. He lectures on contemporary art at
Sothebys Institute Singapore and the City University of Hong
Kong. His latest curated projects include Ai Weiwei+Acconci
Studio: A Collaborative Project, Shahzia Sikander, Surasi
Kusolwong and The Problem of Asia.
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Felicia and Adan Singapore Felicia Low and her boyfriend,
Adan, in the open areas near the public housing apartment she
lives in with her parents. Felicia is Peranakan Chinese, there are
many definitions for the straits Chinese, but they are typically
Chinese who have been in South East Asia for many generations
and have adopted Malay culture. Most Peranakan, especially
those of my generation, have lost much of their heritage, and
like Felicia, their only connection is through the food that is still
sometimes cooked in the home. Felicia can speak Mandarin but is
more comfortable speaking Malay. Her first language is English.
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Ng family gathering Singapore Ng brothers, and a son-in-
law, in red, at a family gathering.
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Graces ironing board
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Jac Jac. Peranakan Chinese (Straits Chinese) Singapore
Her family has been in South East Asia for generations, but
Jac is not sure when her family first came down to SE Asia. Her
paternal grandfather had come to Singapore from Indonesia.
Jac grew up speaking English with her parents, and Hokkien
with her grandparents. Her grandparents spoke Bibik Malay and
Hokkien, but she never learnt Malay. She is one of the older
ones among her cousins. The younger cousins, who are in their
twenties, all speak English, and some mandarin. Because of the
Speak Mandarin Campaign the government had in the 1980s,
many Chinese Singaporeans who are now in their twenties in
Singapore dont speak their dialect.
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MAY YOUR
WISH
COME TRUE
IRAN
Photographer Newsha Tavakolian
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Every year during the peak of the Moharram
commemoration period, the women of Khorramabad,
hide their faces from sunset till dawn. Forbidden to
speak they visit 40 houses and burn a candle for
Imam Hussein, the third Shiite Imam, in each house.
Their secret wishes will be granted after performing
the ceremony, according to a 500 year-old tradition.
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O
n the streets of Iran one does not see
burkhas, only hijabs (scarves expansive
enough to allow a few locks to stray) or at the
most chadors, black robes that leave the face
uncovered. It is important to point this out to
allay misconceptions.
But these photographs do send us a real and
important message.
They refect the deep fear of Iranian women:
a conservative radicalization that could lead
to a gradual slide of the present feminine
dress codes towards what is defned in Iran as
Talibanization.
An irrational fear? Nobody can seriously
believe that the Iranian regime, even the
most reactionary, could force Iranians to hide
their faces. Today it is impossible to impose
even respect for the most austere hijab and
these locks continue to escape police control
inspite of fnes and the possibility of being
accosted on the streets. So much so that
Ahmedinejad more out of resignation than
liberalism has said, to the consternation of
the most conservative clerics, that respect for
the hijab is not one of the priorities of the
Islamic Republic of Iran.
These photographs actually refect a fear
that goes beyond mere rules on how women
are to dress.
The way the woman dresses and lives in
society, her love life, and what she perceives as
her role in the family, as well as her sexuality,
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are symbols and a minefeld in Iran, as well
as in other places where a patriarchal system
of oppression prevails. She is an object of
political confrontation and of power and never
a subject.
It is important to emphasize here the facts
of history, our own as well, and put aside
all culturalist (and of course racist) myths:
Patriarchy is not the monopoly of Iranian
conservatives, nor of Islam as such, but has been
till the other day that of societies who only
now, thanks to the struggle across centuries,
have succeeded (with some relapses) in
managing to cross the most shameful barriers
of patriarchal oppression an oppression that
has always sought to bolster and legitimize itself
by hearkening to religious texts and principles
that defnitely bear the patriarchal prejudices
of the age in which they were written.
The act of stoning, a sentence that in theory
is also applicable to adulterous men, but in
practice is generally used against women, is
not a form of penal law but that of politics,
an appeal to what is most reactionary and
patriarchal in the psychology of men and their
fears regarding the freedom of women.
It is the most extreme and inhuman point
in a patriarchal continuum that begins with
the imposition of dress codes. An imposition
only on the women, of course, and thus on
the streets of Iran one often sees couples, the
woman dressed in a black chador and the
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man in Lacoste blue jeans. A modern man
and a woman obliged to be conservative...
The masked faces, hidden visages that
represent the most horrifc nightmare of
Iranians, are the most visible symbol of the
transformation of the subject into an object.
The face is not only an element that helps
the police to recognise people, as those who
oppose the burkha in Europe quite correctly
but simplistically put it. The face is above all an
expression of the human subject, of his/ her
emotions and humanity and is always relative.
And the face is also a fundamental reference
point for ethics. As Emmanuel Levinas has
taught us, it is the face of the Other that forces
us to recognise him, it is a responsibility that
is assumed, a commitment, a limit to our
sovereign will, a moral duty. Hiding the face
means tearing asunder a fundamental ethical
relationship, making respect and relations
between concrete and individual human beings
impossible.
Without a face there is no subject. Without
a face there can be no respect. Without a face
there can be no freedom.
This is what the photographs of the Iranian
woman photographer tell us.
They do not portray a reality but a
nightmare. And they do not point only to Iran,
but call for us to be vigilant of the situation
of women against patriarchal regression.
Text by Roberto Toscano, an Italian scholar and diplomat.
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MEN,
MOUNTAINS
AND THE SEA
INDONESIA
Photographer Rony Zakaria
Curated by Alexander Supartono
Divided by 17,000 islands and located in the Pacifc Ring
of Fire, Indonesia is home for more than 150 volcanoes and
distinctly marked by a coastline which spans over 80,000
km. This project documents an ongoing history of people
and communities whose lives are affected by two major
entities, the mountains and the sea.
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Tenggerese Hindu clerics passing waterfalls after collecting holy water from
Madakaripura waterfall as a part of the annual Hindu Yadnya Kasada festi-
val. During the festival, Tenggerese people seek blessing from the main deity
Hyang Widi Wasa by offering rice, fruit, livestock and other local produce
and throwing them into the crater.
Previous page The Tengger Caldera, Mt. Bromo, Mt. Batok & Mt Semeru, East
Java at night, just before the peak ceremony of the Hindu Yadnya Kasada
festival where the Tengger people seek blessing from the main deity Hyang
Widi Wasa by offering rice, fruit, livestock and other local produce and
throwing them into the crater of Mt. Bromo, believing it to be a representation
of Hyang Widi Wasa.
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Cemorolawang village seen at dawn from Mt. Pananjakan.
Most of the the 6,000 people of Tengger tribe who live in this
village work as farmers. The presence of volcanoes creates
a super-fertile volcanic land giving the locals more harvests,
sometimes as many as three times more than their fellow
farmers elsewhere.
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Several fshermen prepare for other fshermen who are coming
ashore while visitors watch. Bordered with the Indian Ocean,
and despite the high waves and strong current, the sea
provides the fshermen from Depok beach with a rich and vast
array of fsh to catch.
Previous page A Balinese holds a fowl in a preparation
ceremony before being sacrifced for a purifcation ritual
called Mecaru in a temple in Bali. Balinese believe Mecaru
is important to cleanse evil spirits, often sacrifcing animals
in the sea.
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A Balinese washing a sacred traditional mask in the sea
during a purifcation ceremony at Batubolong beach, Bali.
The gold and pearl part of the mask was stolen weeks earlier
and the locals want to cast the evil traces of the burglar into
the sea. The Balinese believe that gods and ancestors live in
the mountains whereas demons live in the sea.
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S
pending his formative years as a photographer
during the decline of traditional photojournalism
and documentary photography in the mass media,
Rony Zakaria maintains in his work to date its
utopian premise and romantic aura. His ongoing
project Men, Mountains & the Sea takes up
the most clichd geographical feature of his
country that has long been replicated in the
overwhelmingly stereotypical, coffee-table style
photographic representations of Indonesia. His
logic is very simple: to match morphologically
and conceptually the more than 150 active
volcanoes and 80.000 km coastline of the
country with the people who inhabit them. Sea
and mountains have been sacred sites for most of
the old civilizations. The modern analysis of the
superstitious beliefs of many rituals has proved
them to have a certain degree of rationality
behind them: respect for Mother Nature.
Although they capture mountains and the
sea, Zakarias photographs are not topographical
as such; instead they are mostly about rituals
devoted to the mountains and sea and the spirit
of the place, the genius loci of what appears to
foreign eyes as a mystical land. These depictions
of rituals are not supposed to be records of
events in the traditional documentary sense
either. They consist of a series of individual
moments that are loosely connected to the
main event and which when combined can tell
a story about the place and the people. These
moments that punctuate Zakarias frame, small
incidents, hidden details and traces on wet sand,
people going about their everyday life, some
exceptional occasions here and there, or simply
changing weather conditions, clouds and fog, a
drizzle, develop their own existence, and make
up an impressionist picture of Indonesia.
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A women prays on Parangkusumo beach, Central Java,
during a Labuhan Lait ritual. Javanese believe that Parangtritis
and Parangkusumo is the gate to the kingdom of Nyai Roro
Kidul, a mythical queen who rules the southern sea. Many
conservative Javanese come to Parangkusumo on certain
good days to pray for their wishes to be realised, from love
affairs, to asking for jobs, to answering unsolved problems.
It is also a common practice in the area for Police offcers to
pray and ask for a lead to the whereabouts of a fugitive.
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The photographs do not attempt to make
ethnographic claims either. From Bali to
Tengger and Parangritis, Zakaria captures
people in the fux of life. Fishermen and farmers
struggling to earn a living taming the land and
the sea, street vendors, sultanate servants and
local religious leaders in their daily routine,
praying women and men caught in the sea
in purifcation rituals are all represented from
the standpoint of the insider and as a result
they do not become subjects of otherness or
exoticism. Therefore, neither the rituals, nor
the events themselves are obvious. For Zakaria,
what the lens see is what he feels, not what he
knows, and this is the quality that distinguishes
him from his peers working in and around
documentary photography in Indonesia at the
moment.
Born in 1984, Zakaria is one of the few
contemporary Indonesian photographers who
seriously pursue the documentary style,
concentrating on the graphic qualities of black
and white as he does. It may be that the intense
chiaroscuro qualities of his often atmospheric
photographs can be seen as revisionist take
on older documentary traditions, but the way
he treats his subject matter is a proof that he
has been reinventing and reinterpreting these
practices for his own purposes. Doing so at a
time when everything and everybody revolves
around the digital, being self-funded and with
few options for publication, is not just a brave
act, but also a proof of integrity and of respect
for the medium and the subject.
Text by Alexander Supartono PhD candidate in the History of
Art at the University of St. Andrews, UK.
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A Balinese man after washing himself at the Watuklotok
Beach, Bali. Balinese believe that gods and ancestors live in
the mountains whereas demons live in the sea.
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A man at the top of Mt. Merapi (2,968m) with Mt. Sindoro and
Mt. Sumbing on the background. Mt. Merapi is one of the most
active among 150 volcanoes in Indonesia. It has erupted more
than 80 times with the most recent one in October 2010.
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A man stands in the crater of Mt. Bromo waiting for Tengger
people to throw offerings. Poor Javanese people from
surrounding villages in East Java come and camp at the Mt.
Bromo crater to try to catch and collect offerings that are thrown
by the Tengger tribe using self-made nets during the Yadnya
Kasada festival. During the festival, Tenggerese people seek
blessing from the main deity Hyang Widi Wasa by offering
rice, fruit, livestock and other local produce and throwing them
to the crater.
Next page Poor Javanese people from the surrounding villages
in East Java came and camped at the Mt. Bromo crater to try
catching and collecting offerings that are thrown by the Tengger
tribe using self-made nets during the Yadnya Kasada festival.
During the festival, Tenggerese people seek blessing from the
main deity Hyang Widi Wasa by offering rice, fruit, livestock
and other local produce and throwing them to the crater.
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COLD SERIES
CHINA
Photographer Mimi
Curated by Wang Chunchen
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M
imi is an emerging Chinese photo-artist.
She combines conventional photography
with contemporary digital techniques to create
distinct works. By doing so, she transforms
contemporary photography into a kind of mixed
media, which is neither pure photography nor
non-photography, although it uses photography
both as an expressive element and for printing.
Thus, a different model of photography is
engendered.
Mimi uses this method to shape her own
representations of reality. She sees reality as a
complicated fux of information and images,
underpinned by the rise of consumer society.
This is seen, for instance, in the introduction,
adaptation, and growth of McDonalds in China,
and the suspicions this has given rise to. Her
Mercenary series is a refection on such foreign
fast food cultures in Chinese society.
Cold Series I I am Looking for My Lost
Twin Sisters in the Worldly World is an expression
of life overwhelmed by information and images,
some of which seem fantastic while others
appear real. Against this virtual reality, Mimi
responds with I Play with Gold Fish of the
Heaven in the Cosmos which suggests an
emancipation of individual existence.
Text by Wang Chunchen
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PILGRIMAGE
PAKISTAN
Photographer Omar Kasmani
Curated by Tehmina Ahmed
A photograph is a mechanical outcome; images and their
meanings, on the other hand, are co-constructed in ones
interactions with the subject.
My work questions the image of the practising Muslim, often
projected as uncritical and submissive. Practices at a shrine in
southern Pakistan highlight an inventive language of negotiation
between the local and the global, giving rise to new forms of
religiosity. Far from constructions of a fxed, homogenous and
universal Islam, referred to invariably in the singular with a
capital I, my encounters in Sehwan Sharif reveal the dynamic,
heterogeneous and plural capacities of lived islams.
In weeks leading to the annual festival of Sindhs most popular
saint, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, I have had to put to the test
not only academic notions about vernacular devotion but, more
importantly, a modernist Muslim upbringing that has long
severed my ties to places like Sehwan. At the end of four weeks,
as I leave this pilgrimage town, I wonder if, like every pilgrim, I
return home with a wish fulflled, leaving behind in the mesh of
many scarlet-coloured threads, some more wishes to be granted.
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O
mar Kasmani, an architect and
anthropologist, employs the camera as a
tool of observation. In this photo essay, Omar
journeys to a Suf shrine in Sehwan Sharif,
Sindh, for the Urs celebration of the renowned
saint Lal Shahbaz Qalander.
Among the Suf orders of the subcontinent,
a saints Urs or death anniversary is an
occasion to celebrate- the death anniversary
rather than the day of birth, because that is
the day the soul reunites with the Beloved,
the Creator.
Lal Shahbaz Qalander has a huge
following, and devotees head for the shrine in
their millions each year to celebrate the Urs
with great pomp and ceremony. A number
of intricate rituals are prescribed for the
occasion and performed with the guidance of
the keepers of the shrine.
The tomb of Shahbaz Qalandar, built
in the 14th century, is a spacious structure,
embellished with the traditional Sindhi kashi
tiles. The courtyard of the shrine is the hub of
activity during the three-day ceremony, and
it is here that devotees dance the dhamal, a
dance of mystic ecstasy, to the rhythmic beat
of the drum or dhol.
The Urs at this particular shrine is not a
scene of quiet devotion. It is, on the other
hand, a buoyant spectacle of colour and
movement. Omars camera captures the
spectacle with sensitivity and restraint.
Among the rituals performed by the
devotees who throng to Sehwan is maatam,
the ritual fagellation to mourn the tragedy
of Karbala, where the descendents of the
Prophet Muhammed were martyred.
During the maatam ritual, young men
beat their chests, chanting the names of the
martyrs as they do so. Omars images of the
maatam are bathed in a surreal light. The
mass of bodies entwined, oblivious of the
blood fowing from open wounds, comes to
rest eventually in the sajda- the obeisance of
ritual prayer.
A procession winds through the town
of Sehwan, heading for the shrine with a
red chaddar - the saint always wore red - an
offering for the saint, a strip of cloth, 600
metres long.
At the shrine, Omar catches a faqir
whirling around in the dhammal, dressed in
red, the saints own colour. The shrine is a
sanctuary where women are free to dance
in utter freedom, to express the ecstasy they
experience. The essay includes rare images of
women in a trance-like state known as haziri.
Omars penchant for detail plays a part in
his photographic work, but equally, he takes
care to frame his photographs with the eye of
an artist. If you cannot undertake the journey
to Sehwan in person, the photographs may
well transport you to the heart of the shrine.
Initially trained in photography at the
Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in
Karachi, Omar has since pursued his interest
in the medium. His photographs were on
display at the EHESS institute in Paris in
September 2010.
Text by Tehmina Ahmed a Pakistani curator and art critic
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COMPUTER
LIGHT PORTRAITS
CAMBODIA
Photographer Sovan Philong
Curated by Christian Caujolle
Vong Reatrey 16 years old
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Yet Sreyly 13 years old
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Tiny 18 years old
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Morn Sreypeak 23 years old
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Sereikol Nakhathary 18 years old
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Bun Thon 11 years old
Previous page Ben Sophea 18 years old
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Ben Chantrea 20 years old
Previous page Sari Sabona 18 years old
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Prom Sitoun 25 years old
Previous page Chourn Ngoun 20 years old
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Vong Thanak 14 years old
Previous page Hong Minea 20 years old
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Ben Vorn 70 years old
I work as professional photographer for a daily
newspaper the Phnom Post and of course, I am
assigned to do portraits. Most of the time, the lighting
conditions are poor, and the situations such as press
conferences or interviews- are not congenial.
In 2009, I spent eight months developing a personal
project about a former Catholic Chapel in the centre
of Phnom Penh, where ffteen families (around eighty
to one hundred people) are currently living. Some of
them have been there for the last thirty years, from
the end of the Pol Pot period, when the building was
set aside for orphans.
After some months, once the inhabitants became
used to my presence, I could take portraits the
way I wanted. I tried to avoid poses and use only
natural light (which was very poor in the building)
in order to let the people express themselves very
simply, but at the same time keeping their identity
and individuality. It was a complex task, because I
did not want to categorise them, and I also refused
to include them in a systematic formal series where
the photographic approach could have been more
important than the person photographed. That is, of
course, a totally different approach from what I am
doing each day in my work for a newspaper where I
never have any time.
I completed the series with yet another kind of
portraits which I found on the walls of the small
space occupied by each family. I thought that those
drawings and collages on the walls were the real
portraits of the people they were uninhibited
almost unconscious expressions. These people were
building their daily environment and, at the same
time expressing their identity.
That was a step on my refection about what a
portrait is and how, as a photographer, I could work
on it. I know that a portrait can never be objective or
true. It is just an image, a chosen moment in the life
of someone, a decision by the photographer and just
an interpretation.
Today, it seems that computers are everywhere, that
they are necessary for everyone. But, in my country,
many people dont have computers, dont have access
to them, dont work with them and will have no
access and no use for them. At the same time, I
discovered that the light of the screen of my computer
is a very special one, different from all the other ones
used for photography, either daily light, or fash, or
spots. I decided to try to reveal the faces of individuals,
some of whom I knew, some of whom I had just met
for the occasion, using this special light.
I have the feeling that it is a kind of revelation, a kind
of contemporary portrait and a question. The only
thing which connects these people is the light I chose
for them. They, fnally, are my creatures and I am
transforming them to include them in a series which
retains their identity all the while asking questions
about technology and society in Cambodia.
Text by Philong Sovan Phnom Penh June 2010
220 | punctum
I recently went to a show in Delhi that
brought together the work of two famous
photographers, one from Mexico and the
other from India. Alongside the Mexican
photographers work, made in the Seventies
and Nineties in India, Mexico and the United
States, we saw the Indian photographers
Mexican photographs of the Nineties, so that
the Mexican and the Indian exchanged places,
as it were, in the show. The eye passed over
the Indian photographers work, stopping to
catch the pictorial cleverness of each image
with a silent OK, got it to move on to the
next. With the Mexican photographer, time
lengthened and became refective, as she drew
the viewer closer and deeper into the heart of
the place, person, moment or feeling essayed in
each picture.
With the former, we were optically and
manually agile tourists playing with light and
shade, angles and effects. With the latter, we
were on an inward journey that made us look
into ourselves, at the fuid and complicated
relations between where we are inside our
heads and where we happen to be physically
at a particular moment. As she compelled us
to grasp the meaning of each image, and of
the relationships among them as a sequence,
something else began to happen. The sense
of an identifed location became irrelevant
and eventually dissolved altogether. We began
to ignore the captions. Place was overcome,
absorbed and transfgured. Like the aerial
focks of birds that she photographed
repeatedly, identities dispersed into experience,
movement, memory, encounter, performance
and connection.
ON NOT
BEING A
TREE
punctum | 221
The Mexican photographers images had titles
like Khajuraho, India, 1998 and Highway
61: From Memphis, Tennessee to Clarkesdale,
Mississippi, 1997-1998. But do the labels
Indian, American, Mexican matter at all
with these mysterious, metaphysical images?
Is she a Mexican woman photographer? Or is
she simply an artist? What do we lose, and gain,
with each of these defnitions of who she is as
a maker of images?

Q: Under what circumstances is national or cultural

context important to understanding a photograph?
A: Depends on who is doing the
understanding, why, and for whom. There is
a way of looking at, archiving, understanding
and writing about photography that is entirely
historical, sociological, anthropological. And
here context is all-important. Usually, this
kind of writing is academic and specialized;
aesthetic criteria are irrelevant or subordinated
to the more levelling gaze of the social sciences.
The hierarchical distinctions between art
and not-art, or among documentary, popular,
commercial, journalistic or art photography,
do not apply in such readings. So, if we are,
say, studying representations of women, or
immigrants, or dwarfs, then we should be
looking at every kind of photography from
advertisements, police shots and ethnographic
records to photo-essays in Granta and the
work of Arbus, Salgado or Iturbide, without
getting into disputes over whether what we
are looking at is art or not, or if it is art, then
whether we are looking at good art or bad
art. We are more interested in content than in
form, and we are producing critical knowledge
using photographs as primary documents. We
might have chosen to look at folksongs or
newspapers or flms, and done the same sort
of work with these, without bothering very
much about aesthetics (although the aesthetic
or formal aspects of these documents could
have enhanced our interpretation and made it
more nuanced).
But the moment we get into questions of
a different kind of meaning or affect (that is,
once we take photography into art galleries,
auctions and art publishing houses), the
moment we get into questions of beauty and
form, or of aesthetic, emotional and intellectual
impact, then the role of context, especially
national context, becomes more ambivalent
and complicated. A different set of priorities
and criteria, together with a different kind of
politics, takes over.
Someone should write about the
international politics of contextualization, and
how a great deal of serious academic work is
structured by that politics. Why is it, for instance,
that Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Eggleston,
the Bechers or Jeff Wall is simply photography,
whereas Malik Sidib is Malian photography
or Nobuyoshi Araki Japanese photography?
I suspect that the answer to this is not only
political, but also geopolitical, going back
to the ancient geographical divides in post-
Enlightenment European epistemology: Who
is looking at whom? Who is studying whom?
Who is writing about whom? Who is the
subject, and who the object, of knowledge and
of interpretation? What do we need to know in
order to understand a Western artist? And what
do we need to know in order to understand a
non-Western artist? Who are we here?
In the frst case, not very much context is
required because Western art is supposed to be
universal, transcending national or geographic
differences. It is Art. But Asian art is not Art,
but Asian art, and therefore an informed
understanding of the various contexts in
which it is produced is essential for doing it
full justice. It is always tied to its time and place.
So, an Indian photographer cannot depict loss,
absence or fear, but must always represent
poverty-stricken or fundamentalist Bharat, or
liberalized and industrializing India. We hardly
ever have books, photobook introductions or
catalogue essays explaining what is Belgian,
French, Canadian or American about Belgian,
French, Canadian or American photography,
because we can respond to Belgian, French,
Canadian or American photographs as we
respond to the Venus de Milo or Mona Lisa,
without having to know about Classical
Greece or Renaissance Italy.
But not so for Asian photography. An entirely
different approach to knowing, understanding
and looking has to be constructed, mastered,
disseminated and repeatedly invoked in order
to bring such a category into the global feld
of vision. And this applies to not only those
who are looking at it, showing it, collecting
it and writing about it, but also to those who
are making it. That is, Asian photographers
themselves often end up internalizing this way
of seeing and start producing work for it, and
from within it, presenting their work, in books
and in shows, according to its requirements.
They readily accept the contexts in which
their work is invariably read, and then start
perpetuating those readings of their work,
together with the assumptions that inform
these readings.
They end up producing work that could
be written about, shown and taught within
what has turned into readymade frames
and perspectives. Non-Asia looks at Asia in
a certain way, and therefore Asia also looks
at, and projects, itself in that way. In the
earlier centuries, this was called Colonialism
or Imperialism; Edward Said had called it
Orientalism. Now it is called Context, and the
right-minded, well-intentioned, academically
respectable sound of the word obscures the
structures of commerce, knowledge and power
that constitute this primacy of Context.

I fall into a place and I become of that

place, replied Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
when asked, during a public conversation in
Calcutta, whether she would describe herself as
cosmopolitan. I feel sometimes, when someone
asks me the question, that I have roots in air. You
know? I am at home everywhere and I am not
at home anywhere. It seems to me when one is
at home, the place where one is at home has no
name. My music teacher had put it to me, once,
more pithily: I dont need roots. Im not a tree.
Aveek Sen is Senior Assistant Editor (editorial pages) of The
Telegraph, Calcutta. He was awarded the 2009 Infnity Award
for writing on photography, given by the International Centre
of Photography, New York.
AD
punctum issue 1 2011
published by
www.limonkraft.org
G-16 Nizamuddin West
New Delhi 110013 India
c/Ermita 15, 2. 46007
Valencia. Spain
editor
frank kalero
executive editor
lola mac dougall
graphic design
incarnations
advisory board
Reza Deghati
Shahidul Alam
Wang Chunchen
Suvendu Chatterjee
Alexander Supartono
Hideko Kataoka
Bohnchang Koo
Christian Caujolle
VJ Villafranca
Lisa Botos
Shen Chao-Liang
Tehmina Ahmed
acknowledgements
Ion de la Riva, Rajni George, Maryam
Khanoom, Isaac Moncls, Valerie Zhang,
Alejandro Castellote, Pepe Baeza, scar
Pujol, Sohrab Mohebbi, Nathalie Grier,
Nikhil Padgaonkar and Menene Gras.
proofreading
Loulou Stirup
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