A sea of emotions

At the middle of Gallery D of Durbar Hall, Ernakulam, a series of photos is displayed in the shape of a chin with a white thread connecting them. The series is titled as ‘The Look’ and each photograph depicts a myriad of emotions that are conveyed through a look or gaze. Next to it is ‘The Prey and the Predator’, which portrays mixed feelings — the vigour of the predator and the weakness of the prey. A lot of such emotions categorised under various themes would meet your eyes while walking through all galleries of Durbar Hall where the photography exhibition Open Origins-Open Ends organised by Photomuse, the museum of photography, takes place. It is the second edition and is curated by Dr Unnikrishnan Pullikal, director of Photomuse.   

The show contains 239 pictures clicked by photographers from across the globe. “We have an official Facebook page. Members of the group would regularly submit their works. We sort them out on regular basis for this show. We have received close to 45,000 images in 2016,” says Unnikrishnan, who, with the help of his aides, neatly arranged the images on the wall. 

As the main theme of the show, ‘images scattered, emotions connected’, suggests that they have woven together photos from different parts of the world using a white a thread that bends, climbs and rotates according to the mood of the photos. “Contemporary creations like digital collages have been allowed to use creative manipulation, but not for documentary photographs or nature photos,” he says. The best photo in each category is honoured with an award. “It is selected by a four-member jury.” 

The show presents a sea of emotions portraying every little thing that makes this world. ‘The Witty Way’ illustrating fun on street, ‘The Reverse Vision’ showing reflections, ‘The Strand of Sorrow’ depicting grief in various forms and ‘The Flutter’ narrating tales of movement and migration are a few. The series in Gallery A is dedicated to trees. Different shades of trees and how they behave in each season and surroundings can be seen there.

Categorising the photographs was no cakewalk, says the curator. “We did sorting every month and towards the end, we filtered them again. The next step was to find a visual connection among the selected images. Then we had to create the hanging plans (display sketches),” he says. 

The team came to the gallery at least three days prior to the opening date and fixed the images one by one, as per theme. Take a closer look and you can see how images taken at different time periods and places find a new connection or meaning in another space. You can savour it till December 9.