'Otherland': Far from hearth, exhibition reminds of cold realities of otherness

Panaji, Dec 16 (PTI) Rows of construction workers for whom the fight of namelessness is one of many on the road to survival hold up their names written in a hesitant drawl in photographer Samar Jodha’s expansive work, “Naming Those Consigned to Namelessness”.

Jodha encapsulates the epic anonymity of over 3,500 workers at Dubai’s Burj Khalifa in his show at the 10th Serendipity Arts Festival, exploring the idea of identity while conveying the struggles and dreams of a people who have been confined to the margins where names get blurred. About 1,200 of the workers, mostly from the global south, find representation at the Ranjit Hoskote curated show “Otherland”.

“Otherland”, a play on the trope of the motherland, brings together the practices of four Indian photographers - Jodha, Naveen Kishore, Ram Rahman and Ritesh Uttamchandani - who have been witness to the crises, predicaments, currents of unrest and occasions of turbulence in other societies.

“I was looking at the people who were building it (Burj Khalifa), which doesn't have much value because the value doesn't exist even in our own country. And what's the biggest thing missing? Its human dignity,” Jodha told PTI.

For his over three-year project at the world’s tallest building, he asked the workers from nearly 30 nationalities to write their names and the idea of their identity on a board and stand in for a passport-style photograph.

“Most people, a lot of them, were never photographed before they got their passport. So we recreated that passport experience in that studio. And every morning they'd come. A lot of them didn't know how to write. So they had to learn how to write, so they could write the signature on their passport,” he said.

By the end of it, Jodha had over 3,500 photographs of people who identified themselves by their names, thumbprints and even the numbers assigned to them at the construction site.

The group show features works across photographs, videos and texts, displaying collective unease and forms of solidarity against “the machines of oppression”, forms of labour and livelihood crafted at the margins, survival in inhospitable and hostile environments, and the artist as both witness and participant, an outsider essaying the role of an insider.

Where Jodha deals with the question of migrant identity, Uttamchandani explores the idea of being out of place in Manchester through photographs strung around conversations with his partner.

As Uttamchandani went around the city, he was met with derision, racism, and was called a paedophile for taking pictures, or for simply looking the way he does - an outsider.

In the text accompanying photographs, Uttamchandani narrates the incidents that marked his experience in Manchester that went from being an observer to being observed.

“People automatically assume that a man with a camera, Asian looking, is a paedophile. It's an assumption. Born from misunderstandings, lack of understanding, propaganda. There's also fear of the other, the outsider. I have no desire to become an insider. I know no matter how hard I try, I'm not going to be an insider,” he said.

From exploring the tourist spots to venturing into areas where he was less than welcome, Uttamchandani encountered protective mothers who called him a paedophile, brawlers who came for his money and drunken youth who told him to go back to India in expletives.

While theatre veteran and publisher Naveen Kishore explored the idea of the other as “A Refugee in One’s Own Mind”, where his photographs included stories from home and abroad, senior photographer Ram Rahman dug through his decades of travels to the United States to feature photographs of the moments of human resilience in the face of adversity.

From photos of soldiers returning from the first Iraq war to women waving a placard in support of Zohran Mamdani - long before the name was recognised globally - and the smouldering remains of the World Trade Tower, Rahman’s work reflects a country in its key moments of solidarity, protest, and resistance.

“I realised I have been shooting street protests or actions for a long time. It started out with my own intervention, which is the Sabra and Shatila massacre (in 1982 in Beirut)...There were sort of multiple histories winding through it,” Rahman said.

The 10th edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival opened here on December 12 with over 40 curators across disciplines of visual arts, crafts, theatre, dance, music, photography and culinary arts.

The 10-day celebration marks a decade of celebrating multi-disciplinary arts, shaped by the expertise of veterans of their respective fields, including poet-art critic Hoskote, theatre director Anuradha Kapur, Bharatanatyam dancer Geeta Chandran, music director Ranjit Barot, art curator Rahaab Allana and food historian Odette Masceranhas.

The festival ends on December 21. PTI MAH MIN MIN