INDIA HABITAT CENTRE to host HABITAT PHOTOSPHERE

INDIA HABITAT CENTRE to host HABITAT PHOTOSPHERE – a month long photography festival that puts the focus back on sustainable development through exhibitions, workshops, film festivals, curated walks and more: December 1 to December 31, 2016

New Delhi: Beginning December 1, the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi will transform itself into a multi-layered art gallery – with both its indoor and outdoor spaces bustling with exhibitions, workshops, curated walks, talks, film festival et al – to host one of the most awaited photography festivals of the year, HABITAT PHOTOSPHERE. The month-long photography festival is an initiative of India Habitat Centre curated and conceptualized by Dr Alka Pande that aims to bring into focus sustainable development and environmental awareness through the medium of photography.

One of the main exhibitions during the festival is titled Panchtattvas: The Road Ahead which will showcase photographs and photo-based installations created by the four awardees of the prestigious Photosphere grant - Harikrishna Katragadda, Monica Tiwari, Shraddha Borawake and K. R Sunil, each having been mentored in this creative process by renowned, practicing photographers like Parthiv Shah, Bandeep Singh, Prabir Purkayastha and Aditya Arya respectively. And that’s not all. The four mentors themselves will be showing their photographic work responding to that of their mentees. Some photographs by both the awardees and their mentors will also be shown at the Mandi House metro station.  

Adding to the multi-dimensionality of the exhibition at IHC, Dr Pande will be presenting an animation work on River Ganga, artist Ashim Ghosh will have a light-based installation titled Illume on view, while Swiss artist Ursula Biemann will be showing a video work called Deep Weather. In addition, at the Jor Bagh Metro station, authors Kavita Singh Kale and Santosh Kale will be showing images from their graphic novel project called “17 Seen Unseen” that was published for young adults commissioned by UNESCO MGEIP based on 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Based in Kochi, Kerala, K.R. Sunil, 40, centers his project around the ethnographic photo-documentation of ponds in Kerala which are on the verge of extinction. Delhi-based Monica Tiwari, 28, has trained her lens to document the lifestyle changes in children of migrant parents by understanding the effects on their education, health, and social well-being, in the context of global-warming led migration in the Sunderbans. 

Mumbai-based Harikrishna Katragadda, 46, titles his project You Can’t Step Into The Same River Twice which focuses on the pollution in river Ganga. Shraddha Borwake, 33, has chosen the all-encompassing Earth as the topic for her installation-based photographic project titled Benevolence. 

Apart from the exhibition, there will also be a film festival on the subject of sustainability curated by Nitin Donde, treasure hunts, curated walks and show and tell sessions. Also scheduled to take place are a series of interactive and educative workshops being conducted by renowned photographers through the month of December. For details on all events, please visit on Facebook - habitatphotosphere, twitter - @Photosphere2016, Website - www.indiahabitat.org