Photographer Annu Palakunnathil Matthew lets her work do all the talking. Her oeuvre reflects the experience of an individual straddling two cultures.
Her exhibition at Tasveer Gallery, titled ‘Memories of India and an Indian from India,’ captures the best of the two worlds. Her work is a response to her experience in America and the result of her knowledge and understanding of the history of native Americans. “The idea started because I am often asked where I am from.
This is partly because my accent is a strange amalgamation of British, Indian and a little American. As I researched I found strange parallels and similarities in the histories of both the Indians.”
Through her current work, Annu hopes to draw the viewers' attention to the similarities between two cultures. “In this portfolio, I look at the other 'Indian'.
I find similarities between how the 19th century photographers of Native Americans looked at what they called the primitive natives and the colonial gaze of the 19th century British photographers working in India. In every culture there is the ‘other’.”
In this portfolio, Annu plays on her “otherness,” using the photographs of Native Americans from the 19th century which perpetuate and reinforce stereotypes. “The images highlight assimilation, use labels and make many assumptions. I pair these with self-portraits in clothes, poses and environments that mimic these 'older' images.
The clothes are also ‘made up,’ similar to Edward Curtis' intervention in his posing and dressing up of some of his subjects in his photographs. I challenge the viewers assumptions of then and now, us and them, exotic and local," she say.
Annu's pictures capture the ordinary things around. Like a pair of really dirty feet with overgrown dirty nails. "Feet reflect the personality of a person and convey a great deal about the person's character," reasons Annu.
Similarly a pair of pyjamas hanging from a clothesline, water poured out of a cup — all have a sense of Indianness about them. "I miss living in India. Time with family, food, the smell of agarbathi and the feeling of ones comes through in my pictures," says Annu.
Annu's work is of the realistic genre. Her pictures are mostly black and white retaining the originality of the picture. To her a photograph is often an illusion of truth. Her other works comprise, the virtual immigrant, where she draws on the experience of call centre workers in India.
To work in call centres, Indians study American culture and either neutralise their Indian accents nor adopt the American ones. They virtually live between cultures.
Annu has also played on the Bollywood posters. She has also sought to throw light on other Indian realities like marriage, market, racism, dowry, wife battering and the girl child.
Annu is now the Associate Professor of Art (Photography) at the University of Rhode Island. The exhibition is on at Tasveer, next to British Library, off Kasturba Road, till June 15.
