Old family photographs ? yes in those stashed away boxes and albums ? are being rediscovered. And not just for the family?s nostalgic periods, but for display at public fora. The family archive is no longer just in the personal space. While sociologists have been interested for long, a wider recognition for photography as an art is generating a lot of interest as well. ?Photographs like these bring alive another era,? says curator Radhika Singh, whose exhibition on her parents, titled ?Through Dad?s Eyes: Lahore 1946 ? Delhi 1966? is as much about their lifestyle as about the love story that Swaranjit Singh (or Jit) and Prem shared.
This remarkable exhibition has photographs shot by her father. But the exhibition goes beyond photographs, using personal mementoes as well as furniture, trunks, drawers, mirrors, even matchbox labels from the era. Equally impressive are the huge black and white digital prints on chiffon. The exhibition, on for a week at Delhi?s Visual Arts Gallery, transposes you to a sepia toned age about half a century ago. An acompanying film has been made from original reels shot by Singh senior. ?My dad died in 2004, and after about a few months, mom started showing us photographs she had pulled out from various corners and started telling us stories around them. And that is when I was struck by the idea of exhibiting them.? Singh, who has been running Fotomedia, spent the next few years getting together the photos, which she intended to use as a tale of partition too.
It?s an age of specialisation, says Singh, where ?we know more and more about less and less,? expressing her dismay at the lack of historical perspective among especially the young today. Shows like these will certainly go a long way in changing that apathy.