[1]Photographs create a frame of the world and the photographers place within it a personally composed fraction of time — a re-enactment in the theatre of memories. This can be said of Pablo Bartholomew’s incessant search for the self at the ongoing exhibition in the capital titled, “Calcutta Diaries”.
“This is a photographic journey into my own archive, focusing on the years that I have spent in Kolkata from the mid-1970, and dealing with an exploration of identity and society,” says the artist.
The ongoing show at Art Heritage Gallery captures facets of Calcutta — the home of his grandmother and a city in flux: caught between a colonial past and the post-independence haze of modernity.
The pictures range from images of his grandmother to a social commentary on the Chinese community, to flowing into the street life of Kolkata and a personal interaction with Satyajit Ray.
Pablo’s narrative of Kolkata is not just an evidence of a bygone era, rather composed with alacrity they present an engaged connection with existence itself. “The images present a biography on the everyday life of the city, exposing its twilight years, its disparities and heady past,” says Pablo.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/pablob3jpg-629