Bridging Passions with PhotoSouthAsia

If the soul is what counts, Vasant Nayak has found a way to be content with where he lives, although it is far from ‘home’. Born in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, raised in his childhood years in Karnataka and settled in the United States for more than three decades, the 64-year-old Vasant is one among many from the Indian diaspora for whom home evokes a hyphenated emotion. What makes him different, even singular, is the journey itself and the pitstops along the way.

“My body resides in the United States, my soul dwells in India and my mind traverses between the two,” says Vasant with the certainty that comes from an acceptance of exile. His adulthood journey began at St Xavier’s in Bombay and the study of communications, and on to the completion of his graduate studies in photography at Purdue University in Indiana, USA, to a distinguished career as a professor of digital arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.

In 1994, Vasant, launched an online venture. The success of that effort provided the basis — and the resources — for Vasant, partnered by his wife, Sheela, to begin the MurthyNAYAK Foundation (MNF). A family philanthropy set up by the couple in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, MNF supports a variety of causes related to women and children, immigrants and refugees.

Permeating Vasant’s life through all of this has been a love of photography, a form that he first encountered in full during his student days in Bombay. This laid the ground for him to realise his talent as an artist and, now through MNF and its offshoot, PhotoSouthAsia (PSA), to support photography in the subcontinent and, more importantly, photographers documenting issues of need and neglect, the forsaken and the forgotten.

Vasant speaks in this interview with Nirman Chowdhury about photography and the spell it has cast on him, the logic driving his philanthropic inclinations, and why he reverts to Kannada when doing his math.

Tell us about your early years in Bombay.

While doing my bachelors in sociology at St Xavier’s, the college’s anthropology department got a grant to have a few students go out in the field and document how indigenous communities lived. This was not too far from Bombay and I volunteered right away, even though I had not done any photography. I saw it as a great opportunity to get out of the classroom and travel into rural India (still my favorite place in the world).

I picked up a big fat book by Andreas Fenninger and read it cover to cover, memorizing most of it for the technical information it contained. I also looked at old photography magazines. Father John Macia, a wonderful Jesuit priest and head of the anthropology department, gave me a few rolls of Kodachrome film and a Yashica Electro 35. And off I went to photograph the Warlis (before their wall paintings became popular), the Kathkaris, the Bhils and the Bhilalas.

I put the resulting slides into an audiovisual presentation. The low ASA/ISO (sensitivity) films were not forgiving as far as exposure went, and it took a couple of weeks for processing. One never really knew then how one’s photographs were going to turn out. I learned to load film in total darkness and get more frames out of each roll. That’s how I began to do my own photography.

After my graduation I studied sound recording and video at the Xavier Institute of Communications [XIC]. We had excellent people teaching us and the freedom to be creative. My time there was one of the most exciting in my life in media. The experience taught me so much, and we worked with minimal equipment and limited resources.

My work at XIC and after was in the documentary style. While I was doing this, I remember seeing a photograph in an old magazine. One black and white image resonated with me, but back then I didn’t know why. It was ‘Windowsill Daydreaming’ by Minor White and it was unlike any image I had seen. I tried to get to know more about White and found some articles on him, Alfred Stieglitz and the idea of the ‘Equivalents’.

Having understood a little of what I had seen and read, I started making my own metaphoric images. I thought of them as visual poems. I remember showing some of these images to Prof Eunice De Souza, my English professor, who seemed to like them.

Sampling The Simple

What led you to the US? Did you experience a difference in the photography community and culture when you moved there?

I was not really part of any photography scene in India. I felt isolated. I knew I wanted to study photography and there were not many opportunities to do it those days in India. So, I went to the US and showed my small portfolio to a few heads of photography departments at universities.

Jaromir Stephany, who headed the photography department at the University of Maryland, saw my portfolio and gave me admission to the program with a scholarship. It was a full year of total immersion in photography. I took all the courses I could and spent a lot of time in their archives looking at original prints by accomplished photographers such as Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, Judy Dater, Diane Arbus, Roland Freeman, Ralph Gibson and Minor White. It is an incredible feeling to hold these original works in your own hands and experience the images.

While in the US, I received scholarships to attend workshops at the Friends of Photography and the Ansel Adam’s Gallery on the West Coast. I was admitted to Purdue University in Indiana and got my master’s degree in Visual Arts with an emphasis on photography. I was also given the opportunity to teach there as a sabbatical replacement. This was my first experience with teaching, and I found I had a knack for it.

Tulunad

I then worked for the photo agency SYGMA in New York as a photo-researcher. I learned so much about image selection, editing and sequencing while dealing with the tens of thousands of photographs the agency stocked. After I left New York, I began teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. I taught there for more than a decade and, towards the end of my tenure, created and directed a master’s program in digital arts, one of the first of its kind in the US. There were aspects of the job that I loved, but eventually the insular self-importance of artists and the art world turned me off.

Sampling The Sacred

So, after many years of the academic life, I left to pursue an online venture during the dotcom era. MurthyNayak Foundation is a result of the financial success of that venture. PhotoSouthAsia (PSA) is a new project under MNF, which is especially close to my heart. It involves photography and education in India and countries in the region. I feel it sort of brings me a full circle.

When you left teaching, how did you pursue your personal photography?

It isn’t always easy. One has to be deliberate and disciplined to keep personal work happening, even to continue thinking of oneself as a photographer and as an artist. There was a period when, as I mentioned, I was rather disillusioned by the art scene and its sense of its own value. It was through my foundation’s work with children in India that I began to find joy in the medium again, and a renewed purpose to my own photography and art.

I began to try to allocate part of my free time for this for my own enjoyment. Much of what I photograph happens in India and I edit my work when I am here in the US. This keeps me connected to India and things Indian, something I need in order to keep my spirit happy.

You seem to have a deeper connection with India. Why is that?

I do feel a deeper connection with India, though I have been living in the US most of my adult life. The only way I keep from missing India too much is by visiting as often as I can. When I am here in America, I try to surround myself with things Indian. My friends are mostly in India. I feel that for the many years I have been in the US, it has been a self-imposed exile.

Random India

What is it that inspired you to support photography in India? When did this effort begin and how has it developed?

First of all, what I am doing for photographers and photography in India is not very much, especially compared to the need. My foundation is a small, private family charity. Hopefully, I will be able to do more as the years go by.

It is encouraging to see other organizations providing opportunities and support for photographers in India. When I sort of got back into photography, after a long time being involved with my online venture, I was excited to see all the wonderful work that was being done in India and in other parts of South Asia.

I noticed that there is a crop of young, committed photographers who take their work seriously. They are operating on tight budgets while pursuing their passion. I felt the foundation should help them in some manner, particularly as the pandemic has made things so difficult for those with already limited resources. I have tried to extend support through institutions like the Chennai Photo Biennale, the National Institute of Design [NID], the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Photography Promotion Trust, and the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication [SACAC].

What is PhotoSouthAsia, and how did it come about?

I started PhotoSouthAsia with my colleague and friend, Shay Taylor, in Baltimore, who is on the MNF board and has developed a deep love for India through her 15 trips there in the last ten years. Having met a few wonderful photographers through our projects with MNF, we thought it would be fun to learn more. We started researching photographers online, beginning in India, but we found just a few sites, and these listed only a handful of folks. We wanted more.

We thought there should be a place that offered some biographical information on a range of photographers, insights or opinions from these individuals, and examples of their work. When we couldn’t find a good source, we decided to make one. That’s basically when PhotoSouthAsia (PSA) was born. It was very important to us that it would be a nonprofit and noncommercial. We engaged Anita Khemka to be our researcher in India and we were on our way!

When we began, we had no idea how many good photographers there are in the region. It has truly been an honor to meet — virtually and in person — each one of them. It has become a much bigger effort than we thought it would be. We hope that it will promote photographers who are not so well-known, those who have been overlooked, and maybe offer a surprising glimpse into someone you think you know. This online resource will launch by the end of 2020.

Tell us about your philanthropic work at PSA.

Encouragement and financial support are important to artists who have the talent and the courage to hold a magnifying glass before the world and a mirror to the face of society. By funding specific projects, PSA aims to highlight important issues, transforming ignorance and apathy into concern and action. If a picture is worth a thousand words, film and social media have increased that exponentially. Our grant-making focuses on specific, short-term projects that align with our mission.

We became aware of the Agastya Foundation in 2008 when we met its founder and director, Ramji Raghavan, and we have worked with them since then. The Kuppam Campus, born of this association, has a special place in our hearts. It was outfitted with new equipment to teach digital literacy to village students who otherwise have no access to computers or the internet.

In 2014, we teamed up with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences to create a program that awarded funds to alumni to produce six short documentaries to depict societal problems and promote awareness.

Besides, we backed a multi-site exhibition — India: Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art — held in Houston, Texas, as part of the 2018 FotoFest Biennial. Funds were provided to FotoFest to cover the expenses of five mid-career Indian photographers whose work documented social issues in India.

We worked with the Society for Photographic Education [SPE] to organize a symposium in Delhi in January 2020, bringing together educators and professionals from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, the United Kingdom and the US. We sponsored the panel of photographers and educators from South Asia, Shahidul Alam, Tanvir Murad, and Meena Vari, who presented at the SPE 2020 Houston Conference. And we supported photographer Max Pinckers for lectures and a workshop India in January 2020.

The third Annual Social Documentary Photography Grant 2020, given by PSA in association with SACAC, open to all photographers under the age of 35 and based in the South Asian region was just awarded. The jurors for 2020 included Asim Rafiqui, Gauri Gill, and Prashant Panjiar. Previous years’ jurors included Ram Rahman, Colette Veasey-Cullors, Sudharak Olwe, Sanjeev Saith, and P. Sainath. The purpose of this grant is to enable talented photographers to build a body of work and encourage artists who highlight areas of need, injustice and neglect.

What about PSA’s recent projects?

PSA has committed funds in 2020 to a few projects led by Sudharak Olwe’s Photography Promotion Trust. The first will take a van into a marginalized community to train individuals to use photography to document their lives. The second identifies and awards ten photographers through Samyak Drishti. It is a small amount, but we believe this can make a big difference for photographers who face financial hurdles during these unprecedented times. PSA is also working to support Olwe’s efforts to shine a light on the work of the Indian NGO Ekjut and the vital nature of what they do.

PSA is, additionally, providing awards to two graduating students of photography at NID. Also, through NID, we are supporting the ‘Sabarmati River Project’ with Rajesh Vora, Rishi Singhal and graduate student, Raj Maurya, who are researching and creating a digitized visual archive of the Sabarmati River since the mid-20th century, using material from NID’s archives, Ahmedabad’s professional photo studios, and other local sources.

PSA is proud to support the Analogue Approach Project [TAAP], an initiative involving Srinivas Kuruganti and Rahaab Allana that explores the culture of printmaking, the perspectives of printmakers and the stories behind images. From a darkroom studio in Delhi, TAAP looks forward to sharing narratives around image-making, field notes about hands-on experimentation, and the ways in which practitioners and artists approach the medium of photography.

PSA is keen on education programs in India, and when we learned about the Chennai Photo Biennale’s (CPB) Photo Camps for urban youth, we knew we wanted to be a part of it! Photography breaks barriers and engages youngsters in telling their own stories. Experienced mentors, selected by CPB, instruct children from diverse backgrounds in photo basics using the iPhone.

PSA also is proud to have sponsored the PIX issue entitled, “Personal Paradigms,” 30.Apr.2020, published by Rahaab Alana and his team.

Being on the Board of the Aperture Foundation and on the Exhibitions Committee at the International Center for Photography (ICP), what might you be able to do to support photography in India / South Asia?

It is a real privilege to be associated with these two wonderful organizations that are doing so much for photography in the world. Being on a committee and board allows one to prompt certain ideas, with an eye on inclusion, and see how suggestions fit in with the institutional goals and programming. The pandemic has made it difficult for everyone to pursue existing plans and make new ones.

Tell us a bit about your childhood.

I was born in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu. While my father was away in the United Kingdom to study public health, we — my mother, my two sisters and I — lived with my mother’s aunt, one of the first women to practice as a doctor in the state.

After my father’s return, we lived in various parts of the country since my father’s job forced him to move from time to time (he was the district health officer for South Kanara district in Karnataka and, later, joined UNICEF in Delhi). We lived in Udupi, Puttur, Mangalore, Bangalore, Pune, Bombay and Hyderabad. Learning new languages and making new friends was always difficult, knowing we might be in another place in a couple of years.

It is Udupi that I think of as my home. Konkani is my mother tongue and I use it when I speak with my siblings. I am also proficient in Kannada. I studied in a Kannada-medium school till standard VII — and I still do my math in Kannada.

Family Stories

Some of Vasant’s photographs can be seen on Instagram at vasant.nayak.2020

Nirman Chowdhury

Team Member

Nirman Chowdhury is a film-maker based in Mumbai.