LuxeBook February 2022

Mapping histories of the subcontinent at the Chennai Photo Biennale Untold stories take centrestage at this photo exhibition BY JADE CRASTO I t is perhaps fitting that Chennai, the site of the first colonial endeavour to measure and map the subcontinent, the ‘Great Trigonometrical Survey’ of 1802, is now the place of construction of resilient cartographies. The Chennai Photo Biennale, a biennial event organised by the CPB Foundation and the Goethe-Institut Chennai is committed to promoting photography across various demographics. The CPB Foundation’s main area of focus is photography education and discourse throughout the year, resulting in a city-wide public-art photography festival every two years that provides a platform to showcase and a chance to connect with global, national, and independent artists and curators. The third edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB) began on December 9 and concluded February 6. The biennale’s participants, through their contributing pieces, negotiated conflicting ideas of our global future. They questioned the invisible realms of power and knowledge shaping our global present. The artworks were often political in nature, raising fundamental questions on the inequitable distribution of global resources, which result in the marginalising the interests and voices of different communities and peoples. All this, through the medium of photography. After all, a picture does really speak a thousand words. LuxeBook spoke to Shuchi Kapoor, founding member of the Chennai Photo Biennale, about the third edition of the Biennale and the uniqueness behind it. Soumya Sankar Bose, Where the Birds never sing, 2017-2020 Vamika Jain, Tourist at Taj Mahal, Agra, India, Travel therefore I am, 2018-Ongoing Carolina Caycedo, Serpent River Book, 2017 Michael Hanna, A Living Colour Index, 2020 Lisa Rave, Europium, 2014 DECOLONISING M APS 44| L U X E B O O K | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 | L U X E B O O K |45