Snaps out!

An international photography exhibition in Chennai is taking contemporary art to spaces beyond galleries

- BY LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

Imagine walking through a high-end shopping mall in Chennai, cocooned from the heat and noise outside, except for the rhythmic shuffling of footsteps on polished marble. You are probably there for a mundane errand-a pair of shoes, a quick bite-but then an interesting photograph hanging on a wall stops you in your tracks and takes you inside the Sundarbans. A mall is usually not a place you expect to encounter a form of art, but now you can-all thanks to the Chennai Photo Biennale's (CPB) International Photography Open Call. With the open call, the CPB, a nonprofit, is dragging art out of the exclusionary silence of the gallery and into the messy intersections of daily life. It is not merely exhibiting images; it is leading a movement to democratise the visual landscape. And so, you can spot the exhibition at VR Chennai mall near the busiest Thirumangalam-Koyambedu junction, the MRC Nagar park and the Avtar Foundation for the Arts.