Poetic Documentary

About

'Poetic Documentary' presents the work of three artists; Kriti Arora, Jeet Chowdhury and Gigi Scaria, all of whom present work that is rooted in documentary but suffused with a very subjective aesthetic. Kriti Arora presents a series of photographs that are part of an ongoing series initially inspired by a trip in 2004 to Jammu and Kashmir, her ancestral home. Arora has described the journey as an intimately personal pilgrimage to this conflict torn region." For Arora, Kashmir is a land of contrast with an idyllic landscape being destroyed by conflict or development. A number of the women portrayed in Arora's photographs can be described as the intelligentsia of the region, but instead of assuming that social position, have instead had to face the consequences of the ongoing violence. On the one hand they are the repositories of traditional knowledge such as Kashmir Shavism, on the other hand many had to become refugees. That they often hold family portraits and are pictured in antique interiors is testament to lives lived in the shadow of a grandiose past that is being increasingly lost. For Arora, "these images offer a link with the past and provide a silent prayer for a peaceful future."