Zariyein- overview

The idea of this work came about while trying to find entries to working in Khirki and the people who live here in ways that could push methods and meanings of evolving sustained engagements, in the future. Notions of ‘researching’/ trying to ‘represent’ and ‘open out’ static yet ephemeral city spaces like Khirki were/are some of the questions we are attempting to unravel here. Touch upon actually…for these are yet just minor beginnings for all four of us.

This work seeks the participation of some of the residents of Khirki to collectively create a visual-scape of the space, using photographs and texts produced by/ with them. How does a space, when lived in, through its everyday experiences get inflected with people’s sense of familiarity/distance/ownership/ symbol for something that is continuous/adjunct or outside of their everyday lives? We look towards arriving at some basic simple questions about Khirki.

We began by handing out automatic cameras to 4 residents of Khirki- a cobbler, a barber, a teenage girl and a tea khomcha owner, in the area. The initial idea was discussed with them and they were asked to take photographs of Khirki, as they saw it- the way they would like to share or give a peep into Khirki to outsiders. Four of us ‘outsiders’ also took photographs simultaneously, trying to capture images that signified Khirki for us, from our current positions. All the photographers were then asked to filter down the first round of their images to 10 photographs each. The discretion in selection unearthed interesting reasons (and maybe hidden pointers..) – some personal (friends/ my shop/ my road), some symbolic (history/ the city/ ‘type of people’), some removed, some fleeting and impressionistic in nature.

Using the set of 80, we, i.e. we four ‘outside’ eyes, created the first wall of what Khirki was for us. It was arranged as per our understanding of it- spatially, through our ‘familiar’ and the ‘strange’, texts and signage inscribed on the space. The arrangements of the images for us, were our tentative meanderings through the space.

To create the second wall, we took the first set of 80 images back to the local photographers as well as some other residents of the area and asked then to choose four photographs that they identified with in any which way as being their space- their Khirki. The order of arrangement on the wall (a miniature of which was used outside) was also theirs according to their varied associations with their chosen images.

A movement from the first two walls that has grown through the loop and logic of the work would go on to create the third wall- an eye looking at and looking from the first two positions.

For the final work, the fourth wall (accompanied by sound and video loops) would be left blank with just the photo cards of all the initial 80 pictures (also on the first wall) and some texts (of conversations with people/ their experience of taking photographs/ playing with them et al) clustered together for a larger ‘public’ to come and play with. How would they like to create the fourth blank wall and with which images? They however, cannot remove an earlier placement done on the same wall by the player who came before them. We are looking at the fourth wall as a kind of a ‘picture game’ where one has to keep adding on (and cannot repeat) the layers of images put up by other people. Once all the 80 images are on the wall, this space is dismantled and the journey begins again. The first static wall and the fourth, will be kept in opposition to each other.

Ruchika Negi
Amit Mahanti
Subhashim Goswami
Aastha Chauhan

The Resident photographers are:-
Kamal
Laxmi Thapa
K.T
Dinesh