Dreamtigers - UK/India 2017.
Through the prism of photography, one sees that contemporary India is complex and heterogeneous, culturally and economically.
After a period of intensive research, as part of the wider UK-India 2017 programme to mark 70 years of Indian independence, I established a dialogue between image-making discourses in Wales and India today, working with closely with artists, curators and educators in Delhi and Cardiff. The aim was to examine evidence of a cultural shift that has been described by our Indian partners as ‘the move from being a fatalistic society to becoming an aspirational one’ as technology, globalisation and economic development brought rapid societal change to India.
With Wales Arts International funding through the India-Wales initiative, Ffotogallery delivered Dreamtigers, a two year project in which artists and cultural professionals from India and Wales collaborated around the making and presentation of new work reflecting how creativity, technology and a renewed sense of national identity are shaping the lives of future generations in a globalised society. The Indian project partner was the Nazar Foundation/Delhi Photo Festival. The project used photography to examine both the ‘real India’ and the equally present and significant other – an Imagined India that in recent years has significantly evolved and transformed itself in the public sphere and in the minds of Indians. Likewise, Dreamtigers sought to represent Wales as a future-facing nation looking outward to the world and engaging in an intercultural dialogue around the role of photography in documenting and articulating societal change.
In Summer 2017, Ffotogallery presented A Million Mutinies Later – India at 70, the first major exhibition of contemporary Indian work in Wales, providing a comprehensive photographic account of the emergence of a new aspirant class in India, which is driving social change, urban development and an engagement with global media and communications. Curated by Anshika Varma and Bhooma Padmanabhan, there were 18 solo exhibits by Indian artists across multiple venues, and a range of accompanying learning and engagement activities in Merthyr, Chepstow, Cardiff and Penarth. Ffotogallery also produced a bilingual Welsh-English Dreamtigers publication and documentation video, including the featured work and interviews with the visiting Indian curators.
As part of Dreamtigers, Ffotogallery also developed a partnership with JKK (Jawahar Kala Kendra) arts centre in Jaipur. It was subsequently arranged that a delegation from Wales would participate fully in workshops events during Photo Jaipur, give presentations of their work at JKK and meet Indian artists and curators. During the visit to Jaipur in February 2018, the Welsh artists made creative responses to their visit using photography and video. The delegation comprised five Wales-based artists – Peter Finnemore, Huw Davies, Lauren Heckler, Clementine Schneidermann and Marc Arkless – and Ffotogallery’s Head of Education, Lisa Edgar.
