Formative Statement — Sanya Gupta

My practice draws from the archival of old family photographs taken before I was born - representations of a life lived without me yet still impacting my experiences and identity today. This is based on Barthes’ understanding of the photograph as a proof of reality – even if this has not been experienced by the viewer or does not exist anymore.[1] Through this archival process I have discovered a pattern of parallel photographs across generations. These have served as starting points for my installations using the translation of images to represent the interplay between the past and the present in relation to generational patterns and individual identity.
In ‘Bilkul apni maa par gayi hai (You’re exactly like your mother)’, I use John Stezakar’s technique in the ‘Marriage’ series that combines found photographs in disjointed collages.[2] This collage is made of a large number of small squares from three different photographs of myself, my mother and my maternal grandmother during our early twenties. When viewed as a whole, our almost identical facial features align perfectly to make a single portrait. However, the photographs of my mother and grandmother were taken in a professional studio to be sent out for their prospective arranged marriages. This is evident in their demure pose and smiles, and the softer textures and colours of old studio cameras. In contrast, I took my own photograph. The lighting and colors are vivid and clear, and I am sticking my tongue out, staring defiantly at the phone camera. This difference in materiality along with my collage technique illuminates the parallels between past generations while simultaneously representing the differences in my own present. I conduct a deeper exploration of these material differences in my subsequent work.

Inheritance Vol. 1 consists of a rectangular fabric with multiple screenprints of almost identical wedding photographs of my parents and maternal grandparents, deliberately aligned to appear as one image through two overlaying ones. An animation of a line drawing of myself dancing alone is projected across the fabric and over the screenprints. This simple, ephemeral and fluid figure is juxtaposed with the physicality and detailed nature of the screenprints on fabric. It represents the past as something that has ended, to be looked back at and made sense of. However, the animation is a representation of the present and future full of potential – an identity not yet fully formed. Both contradicting elements are tied together by loud music traditionally played in Indian Hindu weddings like those in my family, that this figure is now dancing to.
Within these processes of collage, screenprinting and animation, it was the overlapping and overlaying of multiple elements – physical, digital and audio – that amplified both the blend and contradictions of the past and present. Focusing on this element of my practice led me to Nalini Malani’s ‘In Search of Vanished Blood’[3] and‘My Reality is Different’[4]- large-scale projections merging still and moving images, using stop motion and erasure animation. She uses the wall itself as the backdrop for her projections, leading to an immersive effect that enhances the ephemeral and surreal nature of her animations. Using these methods and materials, Malani seamlessly brings the past into the present moment, with each layer adding new meaning to the story being told.
In Inheritance Vol. 2, I use elements from my previous installations to create a complex layered projection. Old family photographs are edited, erased and changed into screenprints through animated collages. The figure of myself from Inheritance Vol. 1 moves across the projection and over the photographs. It is a muted blue, walking slowly towards these images while accompanied by the sounds of photo album pages flipping and cameras clicking. The figure looks back at the past as something unchangeable, something to fit into. This is occasionally interrupted as it becomes brightly coloured and dances exuberantly to loud bursts of wedding music. The figure parallels the images it overlays but frequently glitches, changing form and colour when it is caught in the nothingness in between. The projection of the video on a wall in a dark space creates the sense of in-between-ness felt in an identity created through generational patterns yet shifting into something new outside of them.