Photo Essay – ‘Somewhere in Delhi’ Exhibition, Goa Arts & Literature Festival
Floating visions from The Delhi Walla’s online archives.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
‘Somewhere in Delhi’ is a collaborative work between The Delhi Walla, and Anna Gerotto, a designer in Venice (see photo 5a below).
Since 2007, I have been collecting hundreds of stories taking place in Delhi, through writing and photography, for my blogsite, thedelhiwalla.com. Every day, I walk around the city with my camera and notebook to track down the part of extraordinary that exists in the seemingly mundane aspects of our urban lives. By exploring and documenting the streets, buildings, houses, cuisines, traditions and people of Delhi, I’m attempting to find the intimate voice of the megalopolis, and to capture the passing of time in this otherwise restlessly changing city.
I also (compulsively) publish texts and photos 24/7 on my Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/mayankaustensoofi) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/thedelhiwalla/).
From my archive of photographs, Anna Gerotto selected 30 images and printed them in large format on a roll of cotton muslin–later cut into sheets. Each photograph has been printed along with the caption that accompanied the original Facebook post.
These images, once transferred from their web platform to the khadi fabric and installed for exhibition, lightly float from the ceiling to create a delicate scene of transparencies and overlays. Visitors are invited to brush past them and even to touch them, so as to experience a personal, sensual and intimate relationship with the photos and the moments of life they managed to grasp.
During such an exhibition of ‘Somewhere in Delhi’ in Goa Arts & Literature Festival, I tried to trace the movement of some of those images that I had originally captured in the bowels of Delhi.
Somewhere in Delhi
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hi it seems a lovely Idea
it would be nice to see the actual photos without all the distractions of people and foliage
hannging proudly in a white walled gallery would be so much more appropriate
Lovely! I really admire your dedication to your work! All the best and wish you many, many years of fame and joy…