Where Three Dreams Cross at Fotomuseum Winterthur

'Where Three Dreams Cross – 150 Years of photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh' opens at Fotomuseum Winterthur. [dated June 2010]

Where Three Dreams Cross – 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh  

Where Three Dreams Cross – 150 Jahre Fotografie aus Indien, Pakistan und Bangladesch is organised by Whitechapel Gallery in London in collaboration with Fotomuseum Winterthur. The curators are Sunil Gupta, Radhika Singh, Hammad Nasar, Shahidul Alam, Kirsty Ogg and Urs Stahel.  
Fotomuseum Winterthur (Main Gallery & Gallery & Gallery of Collections)   
Opening: Friday, 11 June 2010 On display from 12 June 2010 to 22 August 2010 

A comprehensive catalogue of the exhibition is published by Steidl ( 200 images and essays by Sabeena Gadihoke, Geeta Kapur and Christopher Pinney).   

On the weekend of the official opening a two-day international symposium on South-Asian photography will take place (in English).  
Programme of the presentations:   
Saturday June 12, 13.00 to 18.30   
13.00–13.15 Greeting delivered by Urs Stahel, Director of the Fotomuseum Winterthur 
13.15–14.00 Pramod Kumar KG: Grandees of the Realm; Photographic Portraits in Princely India 1840s - 1947 
14.00–14.45 Akshaya Tankha: Early Precedents: Ethnography through the Eye of Photography, Bombay 1855-70 
14.45–15.30 Dayanita Singh: Go Away Closer – My Book Story 
16.00–16.45 Sabeena Gadihoke: Everyday Encounters: Press and Magazine Photography after Independence 
16.45–17.30 Shahidul Alam: Confessions of a Storyteller  
Sunday June 13, 13.00 to 18.00 
13.00–13.45 Suryanandini Narain: Photographing the Feminine: Women in Photographic Studios of India 13.45–14.30 Aveek Sen: Beyond Photography 
14.30–15.15 Sunil Gupta: Love and Light: My Journey with Photography 
15.45–16.30 Hammad Nasar: Contemporary Approaches to Photography in Pakistan 
16.30–17.15 Bani Abidi: Artist’s Talk 
17.15–18.30 Panel discussion  
  
Brief on the project 
Histories of photography, as presented through books or exhibitions in the twentieth century, have been dominated by Europe and the United States. The exhibition Where Three Dreams Cross – 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and the publication accompanying it articulate the untold story of an equally significant history, as rich and as formally innovative, yet embedded in the culture and politics of South Asia. It does not reiterate a western view of the east, but celebrates how successive generations of photographers from the subcontinent have portrayed themselves and their eras.  

Where Three Dreams Cross spans the transition of the South Asian peninsula – once defined as ‘the immense rhomboid’ bordered by the Himalayas in the north and the ocean to the south – from a heterogeneous yet single entity defined by the Indus river to its subdivision into three nations: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The fast time of political upheaval and technology and the slow time of family, culture and ritual are captured through the lens of some 80 artists. Their work also demonstrates formal experimentation and aesthetic lines of enquiry that are indigenous yet of universal interest.  
This project traces the characteristics of contemporary photography through its historical precedents, revealing the roots of the medium’s development over the past 150 years. Its starting point is the crucial moment when the power to hold a camera, frame and capture images was no longer exclusively the preserve of colonial or European photographers. This sense of self-determination and self-representation is evident in hundreds of remarkable photographs brought together here, for the first time. They have been made by a wide variety of practitioners from amateurs to photojournalists, documentary photographers and artists.  

This survey is structured thematically, taking an innovative approach to integrating historical material and contemporary works within five broad areas. The clustering of works and the essays analysing them trace the following thematics: The Portrait, The Performance, The Family, The Street and The Body Politic. 

Supported by: 
BTS Investment Advisors / Volkart Foundation, Pro Helvetia, Holcim Ltd. and Philippe Reich   
For more information:  http://www.fotomuseum.ch/PRESS.3.0.html?&L=1