In the kingdom of snapshots

Hydearabd: Photographer artist Manjari Sharma moved to the US in 2001, a decision her mother regretted just after a few days of her arrival. “I was studying fine arts in still photography from Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio. I started college on August 31 and the 9/11 attacks took place after 10 days,” says Mumbai-born Manjari, who graduated in visual communication from SNDT University (Mumbai). “Nobody said it out loud, but many looked at it as a bad omen. My mother was very worried. I was 22 when I came to the US, and knew absolutely no one. Suddenly, Mumbai seemed a much safer city than the US. I was just in the right country but at the wrong time,” she says. But she decided to wait patiently and give things time, the same approach she uses for her work that has gained admiration the world over.

Manjari is currently showcasing her work alongside late Raja Ravi Varma and Abhishek Singh at the Three Person Show at Asia Society Texas Centre – one of her five ongoing exhibitions this year. Recently, she also won the first place at Place Curator’s choice award, Centre, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and previously her work was featured in New York Times, Huffington Post, My Modern Met, Wired Raw File and Nikon Asia among others. But despite the worldwide acclaim, the 34-year-old photo-based artist from Mumbai feels that she has yet “only scratched the surface”.

Staying in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and her two-year-old daughter, two of Manjari’s projects Darshan, “an ongoing series consisting of photographically recreated, classical images of Hindu gods and goddesses that are pivotal to mythological stories in Hinduism”, and The Shower Series, which she calls “weird yet amazing” have been generating quite a lot of interest. “The project has been amazing and awkward from the beginning to the end. It started in 2009, when I invited some friends over to take a shower in my apartment and that’s when I would take their photographs. The premise is scandalous, but the pictures are not; there is nothing sleazy about them. Some of the people whom I have shot are my friends, while others knew about my work and wrote to me asking whether they can take a shower in my apartment,” laughs Manjari.

She admits that even though her husband has been a good sport, her family didn’t quite understand what was going on. “Every weekend my husband would joke, ‘Now Manjari is going to tell me to take a bike ride around the city’. My parents, on the other hand, think I have lost my mind. They are happy that I am married and no longer their problem,” she laughs.

While Manjari has managed to carve an enviable career for herself, she admits it wasn’t an easy ride. “As Diane Arbus, renowned photographer once said, ‘It took me forever to inherit my own kingdom’. I have been working ever since I graduated from SNDT University. Even while studying in the US, I didn’t ask my parents for money and took various jobs. The important thing is to keep reminding yourself where you are in this. Life is an exchange of honesty; our own photographs have a lot to teach us and that happens over time. It’s like making ghee at home; you need to keep simmering it till you get the desired results.”

After Manjari’s last show titled The Fence in Atlanta gets over in October, she plans to go offline. “The schedule is hectic and the work just never gets done – there is always the next show, shipment or something to build. After the conclusion of my shows, I plan to go offline into the creation mode,” she says.