09 January,2022 07:43 AM IST | Mumbai | Jane Borges
Mali created this image on his terrace with a bed of autumn leaves
The first time we encountered Akshay Mali, it was through his nude self-portraits on social media. But, it wasn't him posing in the buff that elicited our shock and awe, as much as the near freezing temperatures in which these photographs were taken. We see Mali sitting in an open meadow against a snow-clad mountain in Spiti Valley, bare in the cold, free almost of his own skin. To a viewer, such an attempt would seem unthinkable, certainly foolish.
For Mali, it helped "rekindle my connection with the natural world," while developing an inexplicable physical and mental strength to fight the extreme conditions. "At one point, I couldn't feel the cold," he says, or rather, the cold couldn't feel him. "But, I was very conscious of what I was putting my body through." Mali's brazenness might seem unsettling to many. He is aware of the reaction his work elicits. The intention is to provoke, he admits. "In fact, that gives me a lot of energy and positivity to push myself further."
The 22-year-old creative artist and photographer is showcasing his body of work - 78 photographs and 25 artworks - in a debut exhibition titled, It's Me, at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir in Pune. The show, which began on January 7 and ends today, is already raking up a controversy, with Mali being asked to take it down on Saturday. For Mali, though, this was just a platform to express the "fluidity" in life and art.
Mali, who lives in Pune, grew up in the small town of Satara, which, he claims, shaped the person he would become. "When I was in Class VIII, I moved into a boarding school, and this changed me completely," he recalls in a telephonic interview. "It seemed like we were being trained to be soldiers [not students]. I felt like a machine with absolutely no freedom. This was my life for the next five years," he says, while discussing how "lost" he felt. As someone, who was always introverted and shy, this experience made him withdraw further into a shell. While in Class X, he got himself a DSLR, and for the longest time, it was wildlife photography that kept him occupied. His creative pursuit landed him an admission to the Symbiosis School of Photography in Pune. "It's here that I began understanding what freedom really meant," he says. "Those years in boarding school had affected me greatly. People in college would ask why I wouldn't speak. The truth is that I couldn't even string a sentence together in English. My confidence had hit an all-time low." Mali remembers how a lecturer had asked the class to take pictures around "gender stereotypes". "I didn't even know what that meant."
During this time, "it was my pictures that did the talking". After taking a lot of wildlife pictures in the first year of college, he started exploring fashion photography. "I think I was experiencing a personal transition as well. I had started dressing differently. I also began growing my hair long."
As he continued to explore the works of veteran photographers, he grew curious about the human anatomy. "I wanted to try taking pictures of people in the nude. But, nobody was ready for the experiments I had in mind."
Mali says that the reason he took to the camera so easily was because he was never comfortable with attention. "I had stage fright, and preferred to not be noticed. It's why being behind the camera made more sense [to me]." But, if he wanted to make known his vision, he realised he had to start with himself. That's how Mali began taking his own photographs.
One of the earliest set of pictures was on a college trip to Himachal Pradesh. Travelling to Chandra Taal, Rohtang Pass and Spiti, he attempted what very few would dare to, shooting in -10 degree Celsius temperatures, sometimes inside freezing lakes. Some of the pictures from the series titled, The Bare Trip, are part of the ongoing exhibition. He has even taken pictures in Satara, travelling as early as 4 am in the wilderness. "When I was in school, I would often bunk class and walk endlessly, exploring new places. At the time, it seemed like a complete waste of time. But, now with my camera in hand, these places became my school," he adds.
With his photographs, he hopes to push the limits of art. Sometimes a pool with a bed of autumn leaves becomes his blanket, on other occasions, a lakeside is his bedroom - a bed with white linen where he is seen lying in fetal position, and a side-table holding a camera and lamp, become props in his frame. Mali says that he doesn't see life in binaries anymore. "I don't believe in the idea of good and bad, wrong and right. In my head, I live in a borderless time and space. Everything is fluid, including my sexuality. I am now in a state where meaning is totally meaningless to me. I can do anything, and be anyone. I can walk naked or wear a skirt. I am totally shameless that way."
Another nude series that he worked on, and which he has deliberately kept untitled, saw him work with models, who reached out to him on social media. "I have never shot in public, because I don't want to scare anyone. People are not ready for this yet."
The COVID-19 lockdowns that confined him to his room in Pune, were hardly an impediment, he says. In one picture he is seen balancing himself upside down on a commode, with his head right in; it's his attempt to question why people use it only to dump their own waste. There's another image, where he sits nude on his bed, with the washbasin beside him. "I am creating realistic images in a new and different way as a means to unlock the power of the imagination and offer a new direction for exploration. I am distancing myself from the rules set by the society. This is the struggle for freedom, equality and promotion of justice," Mali captions it. "I was not at all anxious about being stuck at home. I used that time to create a lot of abstract artwork that will [also] be part of the show," he says. He has also used menstrual blood and his own poop for his canvas paintings.
Mali says that it has taken a lot of time for people to accept his work, and see it as art for art's sake. "My family was uncomfortable in the beginning. This was new to them, and initially, it led to arguments. But over the last few years, I have been able to articulate myself better, and explain to them why I do what I do," he says, adding, "Though there is a community that has begun to understand my work, I feel that as I take more risks, and I am sure I will, people might find my work more weird and become disconnected." Mali says he is fine with that.
