When the artist turns the camera around

By turning the camera on themselves, photographers create personal archives of their families, bodies and environment

- Riddhi Doshi

The yellowing white wall of a 200-year-old Parsi home in Mau, Madhya Pradesh, has become a photo archive of the dead. It's lined with photographs of people who once lived there-women in white saris with Parsi gara borders and men in kurta-pajama, and shirt and suit. The photographer, Divya Cowasji, also makes an appearance in an image, posing in a sarimaking her the only living person in the photo series titled Remember Me.

Cowasji's project was part of Chemould CoLab's October 2022 group photo exhibition Hearts On Fire-Reflections On Parsi Photography: Past, Present And Future in Mumbai. Curated by Sarcia Robyn Balsari, the exhibition showcased the life of the Parsi community in India. It got the art world discussing the practice of turning the lens to one self, of the impact these works have on the viewers and the reasons behind its new-found popularity, especially after covid-19, amongst young photographers.

In Remember Me, Cowasji looks at her family history through the objects that her ancestors left behind. She contemplates existentialism, while also thinking of her death and the anxiety about the next inheritor of the family heirloom. Cowasji's photo series started in 2018 when she lost many loved ones, and came to inherit their objects-saris, books, frames, and even her actor-grandmother's hair rollers.

By turning the camera on themselves, photographers like Cowasji create personal archives of their families, their community, their environment and their bodies. These projects are outcomes of personal crises, overwhelming emotions or the sociocultural and political environment around them. During the covid-19 lockdowns, when photographers went back home from the places they worked in or when they were trapped indoors, they were, in a way, compelled to look within.