Today’s Mumbai as Photo-Textuality

Authors

  • Carmen Concilio Università degli Studi di Torino

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/2384-8987/936

Keywords:

Mumbai, Photo-Text, Photo Essay, Urban Studies, Slums, Adivasi

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to enquire into representations of the city of Mumbai whose urban development has produced images of heaven and hell, sometimes within enclosed boundaries. What is interesting to tackle here is its aestheticisation in a photo-book which presents itself as ‘image-text’ (Mitchel, Stafford), Bombay/Mumbai. Immersions (2013). Not differently from what happens in other cities, such as Cape Town, for instance, here considered only very briefly as counterpoint, the Indian megalopolis’s development has produced disconnected images of urban heaven and hell. The photo-text here discussed presents itself as a composite narrative of words and photos, as the product of the cooperation between an Indian woman poet, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, and an English photographer now based in France, Christopher Taylor. Last but certainly not least in a long sequence of urban photo-texts, this new project requires the reader’s attention in order to try and clarify its role, its meaning, its function, its ethical/aesthetic responsibilities.

Author Biography

Carmen Concilio, Università degli Studi di Torino

Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere e Culture Moderne

Professore Associato di Lett. inglese e postcolonaile

References

Appadurai, Arjun (2001), “Deep Democracy,” Environment and Urbanization, vol. 13, n. 2, (October 2001), pp. 23-43.

Goldblatt, David (2010), TJ. Johannesburg Photographs 1948-2010, Rome, Contrasto.

Güler, Ara (2009), Istanbul. 40 Years of Photographs, London, Thames and Hudson.

Henry, Yazir (2012), “The Ethics and Morality of Witnessing: On the Politics of Antjie Krog (Smuel’s) Country of My Skull”, in Ewald Mengel and Michela Borzaga (eds.), Trauma, Memory and Narrative in the Contemporary South African Novel, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2012, pp. 107-142.

Matabane, Khalo (2013), Nelson Mandela: The Myth and Me, South Africa/Germany, 84m, Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion.

Mitchel, W.J.T. (1994), Picture Theory, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.

Mitchel, W.J.T. (1986), Iconology, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Pamuk, Orhan (2005), Istanbul. Memories and the City, Trans. By Maureen Freely, New York, Knopf.

Sarukkai Chabria, Priya and Taylor, Christopher (2013), Bombay / Mumbai Immersions, New Delhi, Niyogi Books.

Roy, Arundhati (2014), Capitalism. A Ghost Story, London, Verso.

Stafford, Andy (2010), Photo-texts: Contemporary French Writing of the Photographic Image, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press.

Vladislavic, Ivan (2010), Double Negative. A Novel, Rome, Contrasto.

Web sites:

Henry, Yazir, “The Cost of Forgiveness”, at the Ford School, University of Michigan, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOKXYGhrlmE (11.12.14).

Roy, Arundhati, BBC Video Interview available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z9K2DZWJC8 (19.11.2014). (23.04.2015).

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Published

2015-06-30

How to Cite

Concilio, C. (2015). Today’s Mumbai as Photo-Textuality. RiCOGNIZIONI. Rivista Di Lingue E Letterature Straniere E Culture Moderne, 2(3), 47–58. https://doi.org/10.13135/2384-8987/936

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 3 (2015)

Section

CrOCEVIA

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