How to capture India in one image? The snake charmer, dressed only in a loincloth and turban and with his wind instrument – a pungi – is a fixed character. The use of this stereotype by international media is currently causing outrage among Indians, who are agitating online. In the colonial period, the exotic snake charmer was an undisputed subject. “It is fascinating how long such an image lasts,” says Indian photographer Aaryan Sinha (2001) on the phone. In his project Namaste or Whatever he investigated the origins of Western clichés about India. And he also discovered how deep that ‘look’ runs within himself.
School Girls.
Imprints.
Offerings.
Photo Aaryan Sinha
“For me it started with the realization that the term ‘Indian photography’ usually does not refer to the makers, but to the photos taken in India by outsiders.” This photography was initially, from 1850, a way for the British civil service to record the landscape and ethnic communities under colonial rule. Western visitors who came to ‘explore’ the Indian subcontinent found it exotic. That image was continued by modern photographers such as the famous American Steve McCurry: in his work India invariably comes across as ‘poor but colorful’. “Nowhere do you see the stratification of society,” Sinha echoes the recent criticism of that one-sided representation. “But the strange thing was: at home in New Delhi we also had McCurry coffee table books. So even in India that Western perspective was very decisive.”
It was only when he received criticism for his early work during his training at the KABK in The Hague that he saw how much he had internalized the cliché images. At the same time, he himself was confronted with stereotypes in the Netherlands. “The title of this photo project comes from something that was actually said to me. Namasté is a normal greeting in India; in the West it is thought to be a yoga word and that all Indians are obsessed with it. Without knowing anything else about the culture.”
Ruins Of A Memory.
Closer to Gods.
Glass Factory.
Grappling Histories.
Fragments Of A Gaze.
Fading Facades.
Photo Aaryan Sinha
Sinha is now back in Delhi. For Namaste or Whatever he travels through the country and shows the viewer a different world than the well-known overpopulation, chaos and bustle, he shows tranquil moments. The photo series shows how Indians deal with the traces of colonial rule and shows ‘exotic’ Indian scenes as part of the everyday. At the Taj Mahal, Sinha did not photograph the famous building, but rather the schoolgirls who barely pay attention to the gigantic mausoleum. The city of Benares, also known as Varanasi, is famous for its cremations on the banks of the Ganges, but Sinha took a look inside a glass factory there.
On April 23, Sinha received an award for his portfolio from the renowned photography magazine in New York Aperture . “I first had to decolonize my own view. Now I look at India so differently that I continue to see images that I want to capture.”
Photo Aaryan Sinha
