The first of the two-volume opus that explores India’s ‘multifaceted journey of the photographic apparatus’ (Karode, p. 10) edited by art critic and curator Gayatri Sinha, Points of View: Defining Moments of Photography in India is a collection of 15 articles while its companion, The Archival Gaze: A Timeline of Photography in India, 1840-2020 charts out the historical terrain of photographic practice. With contributions by significant authorities to the nascent field of serious photographic discourse, both books are well edited, elegantly designed and produced, their sumptuous visual material judiciously chosen.
Through her seamless Introduction, Sinha sets the stage for the present volume where Indian ‘photography has borne the burden of wresting back or recalibrating modes of representation’ (Sinha, p. 12). In this complex process, ‘the three traditional coordinates—archive, museum, and exhibition’ (Allana, p. 108) have a vital role to play, one that Rahaab Allana details in ‘Photography and Museum Culture in India’.