Dayanita Singh: Always resolve and spread

I arrive at Dayanita Singh’s home and studio on a cool December evening, and I am immediately greeted with hugs, coffee, and adorable prints of the seasoned photographer’s work. Miniature versions of his mobile museums’ structures are scattered around.

Singh is in the midst of building one of her biggest traveling exhibitions yet – six showcases in five cities – but she is calm and focused as we sit over coffee. She talks about how, over the years, she has taken on the role of curator, archivist, and most recently a photo architect, capturing “time and Is destroying geography. This has freed him from walls, and allowed him to change the order of display, defining how works are placed and viewed.

“I am connected to what it means to broadcast an exhibition. especially one that big dance with my camera [curated by Stephanie Rosenthal, it started its journey in 2022 in Gropius Bau, Berlin, and ended in May 2024 at the Museum Serralves in Porto, Portugal]” she says. The touring retrospective was “exhibited in 11 galleries, which is why it was appropriate to organize a series of exhibitions across India”.

Leo is so busy that she draws a picture to show her complicated plan: Museum of Tanpura At the recently concluded Bengal Biennial; Museum on tour At the Indian Museum, Kolkata, till March 31; photo lie At Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, Mumbai, till February 23; measures of time At Jaipur Art Centre, till March 16; photo architecture At Kanoria Center for the Arts, Ahmedabad, from March 1 to April 27; And mona and me At Gallery White, Vadodara, from March 6 to April 30.

measures of time At Jaipur Center for Art. Photo credit: Lodovico Colli di Felizano

The wide spread sounds overwhelming, but Singh is not fazed by it. “This is what I do. My work needs to be taken beyond the galleries where some people come just to take selfies and not actually look at the work,” she says.

Advancing the ‘Photoness of Photography’

Singh has never been one to compromise on a single style, be it her photography or the way she displays her work. From creating sculptural installations to using her images to create books, she is constantly innovating. The thread that now unites his multi-site projects is his idea of ​​photo architecture.

Mining her vast repository of 1980s art, she is showing different configurations of an exhibition in different cities, and adding something new and distinctive with each iteration. “My ‘museums’ are capable of changing both their form as well as the images they contain,” she says, pointing to a model in a teak frame in her drawing room. She changes the sequence and images as we speak, instantly changing the viewing experience.

photo lie At Jahangir Nicholson Art Foundation, Mumbai. photo Credit:

This fluidity is also evident in his architectural assemblages, which are the highlight of his exhibition photo lieShe chooses a display on her wall, and when I look closer I realize that the beautiful black and white image of a well-lit interior space is actually three different places put together, Each angle meets in such a way that it creates a new space. “The first image was shot in Japan, the second in India and the third in Sri Lanka,” she says, explaining how they are a way for her to go beyond “the photoness of photography.” She emphasizes that they are not digitally created. “To create something more than what I started with, I brought all three photos together, physically cut and pasted them.”

Dayanita Singh’s architectural montage

in an interview with Architectural DigestHe highlights the “early wisdom” that set him on this path. While staying at the Heritance Kandalama Hotel, designed by architect Geoffrey Bawa, she says she began to feel “a sense of déjà vu, although I had not been to Sri Lanka before”. He later learned that Bava was inspired by the Padmanabhapuram Palace in Tamil Nadu, where he had photographed for one of his books. This set him on the path to creating these “places without space.”

on montage photo lie

always pursuing new forms

In the coming months, Singh’s exhibitions will take even more forms. Museum of Tanpura, Which disseminates his work of documenting classical musicians including Kishori Thai (singer Kishori Amonkar) and Singh’s accordion-fold book of icons, and the Zakir Hussain maquette, a replica of the book he made as a student – ​​growing larger as Singh adds more work (of Pandals Pillar, Sari Museum and Indian Museum) Pillar) and takes the show to the corridor of the Indian Museum.

photo lieMeanwhile, will be divided into two parts. One half will go to Ahmedabad and the other to Vadodara. And on its journey there, it will transform from an ode to architecture to an ode to friendship – a celebration of Mona Ahmed (limited to a montage and expanding to an installation of her desk in the Mumbai showcase) Mona and I, Details Singh’s decades-long relationship with his friend.

Singh Studio Box | photo Credit:

Although the project and processes impress, there is also criticism. Some say that Singh has not created any new work, and is merely disseminating existing work. “It doesn’t matter when I shoot something. When I make a work and exhibit it, I re-contextualize it,” Singh responded, expressing disappointment that critics did not understand his process. “Whether it’s architectural montages, constructed contacts, and painted photographs [painted over with enamel paint so they become ghost images of themselves]These are all new works. It is not just new images, but also new forms that did not exist before.” In fact. Excavation, construction, reconstruction and reconstruction have always been at the center of Singh’s work.

The writer is a critic-curator by day and a visual artist by night.