Image Making India

Image-Making-India explores the evolving meaning of images in a digital landscape from the vantage point of contemporary India. Building upon long-term ethnographic research among image-makers in Delhi, Mumbai and other Indian cities, the author interrogates the dialogue between visual culture, technology and changing notions of political participation. The book explores selected artistic experiences in documentary and fiction film, photography, contemporary art and digital curation that have in common a desire to engage with images as tools for social intervention. These experiences reveal images’ capacity not only to narrate and represent but also to perform, do and affect. Particular attention is devoted to the 'digital', a critical landscape that offers an opportunity to re-examine the significance of images and visual culture in a rapidly changing India. This volume will be of particular interest to scholars of visual and digital anthropology and cultures as well as South Asian studies.

Chris Pinney demonstrates how printed images were pivotal to India's struggle for national and religious independence. He also provides a history of printing in India.

This is a portrait of India from the spectacle and colours of the Festival of Elephants to roadside portraits which uncovers the culture of India's vast landscape. The book includes the words of Indian authors including Amit Chaudhuri, Amta Desai, Salman Rushdie, and many others.

This Is An Unusual Exploration Into India S Timeless Civilization By An Enthropologist Who Has Devoted Six Years To Extensive Survey Of The Peasant Potters Of More Than Half Of India. The Author Of This Book , Writes Professor N.K. Bose , Has Applied Some Methods In The Study Of Indian Culture Which&. Have Not Been Used By Any Other Student Of Cultural Anthropology In This Country. His Method Of Correlation Of Material Culture With The Total Cultural System Marks A Departure From The Conventional Studies Of Cultural Processes. He Has Suggested New Methods Of Reconstructing History, And His Data On Contemporary Pottery Making Afford A Reassessment Of Indian Archaeological Materials.The Author S Extensive Experience With Inter-Disciplinary Inquiry Yields Insight. From A Detailed Analysis Of The Ethnographic Data On Pottery Making, He Makes Some Significant Observations: There Is Continuity In Potter-Craft Tradition In India, Traceable From The Pre-Historic Times. The Survival Of The Ethnic Groups Of Potters, Well Within Their Respective Technological Zones Of Pre-Historic Pottery Making, Makes The Aryanization Of India Doubtful. Different Regions Of India Have Evolved Their Own Indigenous Cultures Providing Extreme Diversity To The Material Base Of Indian Society-Their Unity Lies In The Basic Philosophy Of Life, In The Higher Forms Of Culture. To An Average Indian, The Diversity Of Cultures-Food, Dress, Language, Worship-Does Not Really Matter, So Long As He Believes That Every Way Of Life Has Its Own Contribution To Humanity, And That Before The Inexorable Law Of Nature, Every Being Has An Equal Right To Survive Through The Full Course Of Its Cosmic Life. This Idealization Of Diversity Has Helped India Develop A Tradition Of Tolerance, Which Is The Soul Of Her Civilization.Apart From Its Contribution To Anthropology, The Book Will Be Of Particular Interest To Historians Of Culture And Philosophers Of Social History

Photography’s prominence in the representation and experience of India in contemporary and historical times has not guaranteed it a position of sustained attention in research and scholarship. For a technology as all pervasive as photography, and a country as colossal as India, this scenario is somewhat of an anomaly. Photography in India explores elements of the past, present and future of photography in the context of India through speculation and reflection on photography as an artistic, documentary and everyday practice. The perspectives of writers, theorists, curators and artists are selectively brought to bear upon known as well as previously unseen photographic archives, together with changes in photographic practice that have been synchronous with contemporary India’s rapid urban and rural transformation and the technological shift from chemistry and light to programming and algorithms. Essential reading for anyone interested in Indian photography, this book binds insights into a history of photography with its contemporary development, consolidating wide-ranging thinking on the topic and setting the agenda for future research.