Akshay Mahajan
Akshay Mahajan
Winter 2023 Grant Recipient — Photography
Goa, India akshaymahajan.in
Winter 2023 Grant Recipient — Photography
Goa, India
akshaymahajan.in
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
The first thing I like to meet in a new city or old is a sculpture. Toe be a sculptor you need to find a whole body in a head. One sculpts bottom up, with slabs of clay; the chin is often the hardest “The chin becomes the legs, stepping out, moving forward.”
The first thing I like to meet in a new city or old is a sculpture. Toe be a sculptor you need to find a whole body in a head. One sculpts bottom up, with slabs of clay; the chin is often the hardest “The chin becomes the legs, stepping out, moving forward.”
The only ones left on the Island.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
As you walk through Bombay, your eyes are assailed by words, written as spoken at least twelve languages and many others at unscientific count. Your nostrils filled with the compound scent of hot dust, attar, diesel fumes, woodsmoke from charcoal braziers, salted dried fish, and a persistent trace element of dried-urine; you are walking much of the time, through the very sea itself.
Licking your lips, does one taste sea-salt or the sweat slowly tricking down one's brow ?
Its hard to rid oneself of these traces, like wet sand, Bombay sticks to your ankles. Dust it off at your own peril.
As you walk through Bombay, your eyes are assailed by words, written as spoken at least twelve languages and many others at unscientific count. Your nostrils filled with the compound scent of hot dust, attar, diesel fumes, woodsmoke from charcoal braziers, salted dried fish, and a persistent trace element of dried-urine; you are walking much of the time, through the very sea itself. Licking your lips, does one taste sea-salt or the sweat slowly tricking down one's brow ? Its hard to rid oneself of these traces, like wet sand, Bombay sticks to your ankles. Dust it off at your own peril.
Bust in Plastic. To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
A walk at end of the day is meant to cleanse the palette. The sky went from pale purple to deep purple, the roiling Arabian Sea disappearing in to darkness, we again turned to our phones
A walk at end of the day is meant to cleanse the palette. The sky went from pale purple to deep purple, the roiling Arabian Sea disappearing in to darkness, we again turned to our phones
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
Who are the invisible on whose back this city was made?
Laxmi is one such heroine, a professional nude muse at the JJ School of Art, she is from a long line of Pre-Raphaelite muses since 1897. They say unusually in the case of the artist and their muse, the passing of time only seems to amplify, rather than fade perception.
Who are the invisible on whose back this city was made?
Laxmi is one such heroine, a professional nude muse at the JJ School of Art, she is from a long line of Pre-Raphaelite muses since 1897. They say unusually in the case of the artist and their muse, the passing of time only seems to amplify, rather than fade perception.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
Certain things about a place become its memory: the old trumpet horns of old BEST buses; the smell of fresh baking Pao; raw glazed sun on a rain-dark patch of cement on the north corner of Barrack Road.
Certain things about a place become its memory: the old trumpet horns of old BEST buses; the smell of fresh baking Pao; raw glazed sun on a rain-dark patch of cement on the north corner of Barrack Road.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
The halls of the Fine Arts department at JJ School of Arts are littered with heavy oil canvases of Laxmi in every conceivable pose and style. There must be a room somewhere with hundreds, if not thousands, more.
The halls of the Fine Arts department at JJ School of Arts are littered with heavy oil canvases of Laxmi in every conceivable pose and style. There must be a room somewhere with hundreds, if not thousands, more.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
To die is to turn in gold, Pigment Archival Print 2022.
"to die is to be turned to gold" is an in-progress work that tells the story of the once-colonial city of Bombay (now Mumbai). An attempt to revisit the city of the artist’s childhood. A city where for 300 years, hoping to make their fortune people have flocked. In their search for gold, many have died. Their bodies were laid in a place known as Sonapur, which also means 'the city of gold' since, according to an Indian saying, to die is to be turned to gold.
"To die is to be turned to gold" is an in-progress work that tells the story of the once-colonial city of Bombay (now Mumbai). An attempt to revisit the city of the artist’s childhood. A city where for 300 years, hoping to make their fortune people have flocked. In their search for gold, many have died. Their bodies were laid in a place known as Sonapur, which also means 'the city of gold' since, according to an Indian saying, to die is to be turned to gold.
Who are the invisible on whose back this city was made? These visions are set out in this series of photographs which tell the story of several protagonists who are mythologized as everyday heroes.
This cast of characters questions the idea of representation in photography - How do these photographs work? What form of personhood do they instantiate and what politics do they point to? How are they different from other photographs? This work examines what might be special about a photograph, especially a photograph of a face, and how its political impact might be understood.
The sequence of images careens between street scenes, portraits, landscapes, and close-up details, recreating her fluctuating experience of the multiple faces of the city. Working with a commercial sculpture the image will then be reconstituted clay maquettes: an artist’s homage to the cities forgotten as statues. This in turn would be presented as a site-specific installation that questions the representation of the subaltern through photography using archival material, found objects, and sculpture.
Who are the invisible on whose back this city was made? These visions are set out in this series of photographs which tell the story of several protagonists who are mythologized as everyday heroes.
This cast of characters questions the idea of representation in photography - How do these photographs work? What form of personhood do they instantiate and what politics do they point to? How are they different from other photographs? This work examines what might be special about a photograph, especially a photograph of a face, and how its political impact might be understood.
The sequence of images careens between street scenes, portraits, landscapes, and close-up details, recreating her fluctuating experience of the multiple faces of the city. Working with a commercial sculpture the image will then be reconstituted clay maquettes: an artist’s homage to the cities forgotten as statues. This in turn would be presented as a site-specific installation that questions the representation of the subaltern through photography using archival material, found objects, and sculpture.
Read the Interview
Read the Interview
