Coming Through in Waves Paris Photo 10th - 13th
Nov 2022
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Coming Through In Waves is a project that Bharat Sikka began to conceptualize in the 1990s in his home city of New Delhi during the first chapter of his photographic journey exploring Indian identity. Over the course of the subsequent two decades, Sikka would make inroads and small steps in his complex navigation of youth, gender, and sexuality and build the frame for Coming Through In Waves. Set within the context of Sikka’s creative community, this project speaks to the radical diversity of Indian culture that young generations carry forward; the intimacies of urban middle class life in India at this current moment; and the fragility of these privileges to self-identity in a growingly repressive political environment. Coming Through In Waves looks to preserve these independent voices through the medium of photography. Sikka intentionally returns to using analogue photography and a 4x5 camera – symbolically attempting to fix and hold his subjects into a state of permanence. Sikka also returns to a simple, classical presentation style of framed photographic prints that does not manipulate, amplify or distract from the presence of the people in front of his camera. The “return” to working with the 4x5 camera is also personal to him – a return to his own youth and his earliest photographic attempts to counteract mainstream representation of Indians, which has been a continuous quest in his photographic projects for 30 years.
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