The artist Vivan Sundaram calls it “archive fever”. Photographers Ram Rahman and Raghu Rai describe it as the inevitable progress of technology. Another member of their cohort, Dayanita Singh, has been re-editing and re-purposing old photographs, which she says allows them to “wander from one context to another”.
“The history of Indian modern photography has only started surfacing now,” said Sundaram, “and Raja Deendayal and Umrao Singh, working in the 1950s, are considered pioneers. In the last decade, we’ve seen an increased engagement with the archiving and retrieval of vintage photography.” This is a vital step, if we are to ensure the negatives are not lost from public memory. Read more