Untouched Copy

Caroline Molloy (Artist)

    Research output: Practice-Based and Non-textual ResearchExhibition

    Abstract

    (2017) ‘Untouched Copy,’ exhibited in JaipurPhoto: (Jaipur international Photography Festival) A festival of Wanderlust. The festival is an international open-air photography festival held every year in the Pink City. It offers a curated selection of photography exhibitions staged at various public locations across Jaipur. The festival annually attracts a number of national and international artists and speakers, such as Aaron Shulman, Erik Kessels, Anna Fox, Karen Knorr, Federica Chioccheti, Sebastian Hau, Lars Willumeit, Laia Abril.

    ‘Untouched Copy,’ examines the importance of the photographic studio background as a cultural signifier, in analogue photographic studios, in and around Fort Cochin, Kerala. The work primarily builds on the writing of both Pinney (1997) and Appadurai (1997), who discuss the importance of photographic studio backgrounds as a subaltern post-colonial conversation. The work was created at a time when the language of photography was undergoing a paradigm shift. Traditional photographic practices were transitioning from analogue to digital photography, and with it the language of studio photography was evolving. The traditional painted and printed studio backgrounds were quickly being thought of as outdated and old fashioned. The images provide topological evidence of the studio background within, what Massy (1994) calls an ‘envelope of time’.

    Alongside of the exhibition, to situate the (2017) theme, A festival of Wanderlust, I delivered a research paper Studio Cartographies: auto-ethnography as a research methodology. Using my practice as a starting point, the paper problematises the tourist gaze, and drawing from auto-ethnographic research methodologies, discusses writing the ‘self’ into the narrative.

    A link to the JaipurPhoto festival can be found here: http://2017.jaipurphoto.in/. In addition, the festival is reviewed in the British Journal of Photography, Feb 2017. ‘Untouched Copy’ is showcased on Lens Culture https://www.lensculture.com/caroline-molloy
    Photoworks: http://www.photoworks.org.uk/magazine/showcase/caroline-molloy, Here on the Web: http://hereontheweb.co.uk/caroline-molloy-remnants-of-visual-history/ and is reviewed in (2017) Fotografi, Number 4. 36-41.
    References
    Appadurai, A. (1997) ‘The Colonial Backdrop’. Afterimage. 24 (5), 4
    Massey, D. (1994) Space, Place, and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
    Pinney, C. (1997) Camera Indica: The Social life of Indian Photographs. London: Reaktion Books


    Original languageEnglish
    Publication statusPublished - 22 Feb 2017

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