Dayanita Singh

Born 1961 in New Delhi, India Lives and works New Delhi, India Dayanita Singh is a photographer known for portraits and interior views of Indian domestic life, especially urban-middle and upper-class families documented in the Steidl publication, Privacy, 2003. Singh reveals the nature of relationships between family members and communities. Her abiding interest in poignant narratives is made accessible to her audience through the medium of photography. She uses alternative means to achieve accessibility that supersedes the gallery system. For instance she has produced posters and calendars that are distributed openly with the expectation that the viewer will take the work home and install it within her own domestic space. This is a response to and comments on the commodification of art and culture prevalent today as well as a means of shifting the interior views of her broad audience. Her first photographic series documented the tabla maestro Zakir Hussain. This developed for Singh into a symbiotic relationship with her subject, as well as the medium of photography. She gained insight and a sense of Hussain’s way of life, while capturing him, which in turn provided insights for him into his photographic presence revealing over their extended exchange depths of his character that were not previously apparent. This relationship initiated a journey of self-discovery both for Singh and her subjects that has resulted in numerous intimate and elegant images. Singh’s earliest photographic series are in black and white. With an absence of colour articulating departure, memory and loss and are depicted most tenderly in Go Away Closer, 2007. With her accordion book, Chairs, 2001 Singh gave 10 books each to friends she felt were vital points of contact and asked them to disseminate the books to other friends, resulting in a sort of aural transfer of her visual production. The concertina format permits expandability making her books constant works-in-progress and allows for a teleological sequencing. Singh has transformed 7 of her journeys into a series of accordion books known as Sent a Letter, 2008 which are like portable museums. Each is addressed to a fellow traveller. Sent a Letter is encased in a handmade cloth box that reads “SENT A LETTER to my friend on the way he dropped it. Someone came and picked it up and put it in his pocket”, embodying the circularity and random nature of disseminating Singh’s ideas while continuing her engagement with intimate subjects through making the books small-scale and cherished objects. Ladies of Saligao, 2005 is a series in which she photographed women from the village in Goa where she lives. The prints were hung at the local community centre and the women were encouraged to carry their prints home from the exhibition to install in their own homes. Another significant series is Singh’s documentation over a period of 13 years of Mona Ahmed, her closest friend. Singh maps Mona’s intimate life, her adopted daughter, banishment from the community of eunuchs for alcoholism and her eventual illegal activities in a cemetery. Singh has documented several subjects, tracking complex and difficult lives. These images of people working, celebrating or resting show life without embellishment. Singh captures a sense of poignancy not only with human beings but with buildings as well. Her more recent photographs, the Blue Book Series has introduced the element of colour into her work. Although Singh has preferred small-scale and finely printed photography, she has recently been experimenting with other formats. Savita Apte

Dayanita Singh Dream Villa 11 - 2007, 2008