Mirror: Dalston's POCKO gallery showcases work of prominent female Indian photographers

In its upcoming exhibition Mirror – featuring works by some of the most prominent female Indian photographers at the moment – it aims to celebrate the amazing scope of work in the diverse photographic genres as part of the India / UK Culture year.

“A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood, she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.” John Berger, Ways of Seeing.

First published in 1972, these words hold true today as they did forty-five years ago. This exhibit explores the relationship between the woman as a viewer and as a subject of photography. By capturing photographs of women, including themselves, the artists explore the female body as a medium for expressing identity and telling a story of individual and collective experience.

Rather than being passive subjects and surveyors of photography, these artists engage issues of gender identity and politics through the medium photography.

Featured will be the work of Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, Anushree Fadnavis, Ishita Singh, Kannagi Khana, Manjari Sharma, Pamela Singh, Prarthna Singh and Rema Chaudhary.

See Mirror: Women on Women from 12 October 2017 at the POCKO gallery, Dalston.

Main image: Kannagi Khana | All images courtesy of sepiaEYE and POCKO