Sandeep Biswas: Curatorial Statement
© Sandeep Biswas/UNICEF
The VASA exhibition by Sandeep Biswas, a photographer living and working in India, provides the viewer with two approaches to documentary and journalism. The first exhibit “India’s Story of Triumph Over Polio” documents the efforts of UNICEF to eliminate polio from India. Sandeep was a member of a team of photographers assigned to record the efforts by health officials and communities. The second exhibition entitled “Rajasthan” documents various cultural aspects of the historical region was an assignment from Mana Hotel. Both assignments are for book publication.
Taken as a whole the VASA exhibition is a demonstration of the use of the camera in the documentary tradition. The polio work (for UNICEF) shows us time after time young children being immunized. There is a brief series of images showing some older children in what appears to be a garbage dump, setting some of the conditions that some children experience and emerge out of (or never). The rest of the work points us to health workers dropping the life saving drug into the mouths of babies and young children.
Photography from its invention has been used as a form of documentation. Images don’t lie, was the accepted position taken; it was evidence of what was before the lens. We know now that is not the case. Yes, the world needs to be there or somewhere, but there are many others factors that play into the image produced and experienced. For example the nature of the lens used, where the photographer stands setting the frame lines, the moment of decision to record, the means and medium of reproduction and presentation. These and more construct the experience of the image. Add to this the manipulative ability provided by Photoshop and other graphic programs to lay the foundation for truths and untruths, falsehoods and recordings, and illusions of reality. This is a true, a fact, because I have a photograph of it.
What I believe is powerful about the polio exhibition is the repetition of images of children being treated. The work here was selected from a larger body of images in order to give the impression of the enormity of the UNICEF project. Taken from a behaviorist perspective, it is the mere repetition that implants the idea and the vastness of the need. Using close-ups and tight framing, Sandeep pulls the viewer in to the humanity of the child, forming a sympathetic connection.
The second exhibition entitled “Rajasthan” is constructed along a traditional photojournalistic style of reportage. We see what Sandeep wants us to see. It is a visual survey of dress, behavior and presentation. Different from the polio exhibition where it is the collective nature of the images that give it power, “Rajasthan” builds on individual images mirroring efforts found in visual anthropology and visual sociology. Here we see dress and ritual, tattoos and body art along side images of camels and other artifacts.
Both projects provide the interested viewer with references to two different approaches to the documentary and photojournalistic paradigm. Each sets its borders and what may be called a hidden subjectivity. Censorship of experience occurs here on a paradigm level. If Sandeep had varied from the visual definition of documentary his work would be questioned because of his subjectivity. Instead of appearing as neutral representations they would be viewed as subjective notations, a biased look that deviates from a recognized format and position. Of course all representations are subjective with reference to the author (Sandeep is an author). With that in mind it is commonly understood that the documentary image is not as it appears, not a truthful retelling, or a mirror, but a subjective presentation embedded within a social political economic and historical construct.
© Roberto Muffoletto, 2018