Making of memory: With analog and digital photos, new show traces how we recall

What links photographs and memories together and how do those ties evolve as the world becomes increasingly digital Bengalurubased artist Philippe Calia who has spent a considerable time in Mumbai explores this through his latest and first solo exhibition in a gallery space ever which happens to be in this cityThe show lsquoLethersquo mdash named based on the river Lethe from Greek mythology which makes people who drink from it experience forgetfulness mdash is set to open at the TARQ art gallery in Colaba Caliarsquos artworks use different mediums such as photochemigrams cyanotypes and video to explore the essence of digital memory todayFor this the artist who is also a photographer and filmmaker draws from two memories from his childhood which left a lasting impression on him The first one was of a factory sending out plumes of smoke which is how he thought clouds were made which today he uses to depict the digital cloud and Cloud Atlas In his video piece he makes use of a 1970s photograph of his family and juxtaposes it with his own pictures that he has clicked over the years at the same location and others to reflect on the possibility of decline of memories over time Murin Murin Australia 2021 Photo Courtesy Philippe CaliaTARQMidday Online reached out to Philippe Calia to understand the idea behind this exhibitionWhat inspired you to choose Lethe as your theme for this exhibition I chose this title very recently I felt it did justice to the work in several ways echoing with the process the act of diluting the thermal prints or washing the cyanotypes in water as well as with certain themes and motifs I was exploring throughout the creation of this work oblivion entropy ecology geology overflowhellip to name a fewHow is this exhibition different from your work till now It is my first solo show in a gallery space and I am really happy that this happens in Mumbai which still feels home after having been living there for almost 10 years It is also a special one in the sense that even though I am speaking about photography and using photographic techniques the works are abstractnonrepresentational and mostly produced from available imagery Indeed I worked with satellite images damaged photographs which I have collected over the years in Paris and Mumbai but also some prints from my own family albumArtist photographer and filmmaker Philippe Calia uses the process of creating photochemigrams cyanotypes and video for this exhibition Photo Courtesy Philippe CaliaTARQHow did your early memories influence you to create these artworks Two specific memories from childhood emerged while making these works These are not of memories of events but rather of belief and perception of reality What mattered for me is not so much if they influenced my creative process as much as how they could enrich the viewerrsquos experience of the worksYou have also used a photograph from the predigital days in this exhibition and attempted to change the way we view it today With the overwhelming nature of easily accessible photos today what made you go back and use the old photographs as a medium Old photographic prints are images which bear a life of their own and I wanted to look at them almost like forensics Their degradation stands in contrast with the supposed absolute stability of the digital image the one of the ldquocloudrdquo safely kept and backed up in multiple data centres That way they help me assess the hypermnesic society we are heading towards and accept the value and importance of oblivionWhat are the different mediums you have used for this exhibition Why did you decide to use lsquophotochemigramsrsquo cyanotypes and video for this exhibition Chemigram was a term that was coined in the 1950s by Belgian artist Pierre Cordier to describe his process of making works to paint with chemicals on light sensitive paper My process of photographing prints that I dilutedestroyerase myself is quite different Yet because the starting point has an indexical nature satellite imagery and the arrival point is similar in its abstraction I call them ldquophotochemigramsrdquoSimilarly Cyanotype printing is a method that is allowing me to ldquobring backrdquo the digital image in the physical world handle it with my own hands and give it an existence that is more than just between letrsquos say a computer and a printing device The production of an imaginary atlas of the digital cloud with a printing technique that was used in architecture for ldquoblueprintsrdquo made even more sense As much as the ambiguity of the colour the blue can be of the sky or the sea that reflects it As for video it is for me a way to explore the process of an image coming together or apart in durationWhich medium do you prefer and why I am trained in photography but I am very interested in photographs as objects and all the emotional charge we put into it I am committed to explore further the video medium while since the pandemic I also started working with drawing and printmaking In what ways did the pandemic influence your art and visualisation over the last two years I always wanted to develop bodies of work with preexisting imagery as a gesture of refusal I actually tried this methodology while working on a collective project in Mumbai in 201617 but in that case more from a desire to question representation The pandemic acted as a frame in which I could imagine and conceive one more of these refusals but this time confined in my studio and based more on a mix of personal and ecological concernsAlso ReadDr Ambedkar Book Centre Six years after demolition the legacy continues at a makeshift stall in Dadar