Presence

X is Y and is Z

In Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges tells the story of an imaginary cosmos Tlön. There it is proposed that all beings are the manifestation of one being only and those beings are aspects of divinity itself. Inspired by Borges, the series X is Y and is Z is about perception, seeing, and finding one’s way. I have passed through the spaces shown here photographing presence and absence. The images come from the moments when there is a spark between myself and a particular time and place. It is a love affair and as in any love affair, one sees oneself in the other. X is Y and is Z is a story about a journey through the imagined as well as the real. The pictures in this series were all taken in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the summers of 1996, 1997, and 1999 and the winter of 1998.

Ujjayi’s Journey

The individual relationship with the divine is not so much worship but a quest for the liberation. – Anonymous, Wall Writing, Cochin, India

In Ujjayi’s Journey, I’ve explored religious coexistence and rituals, the female world and nature in India. Photographing in the tradition of a personal journal, the images are my response to the present while mirroring the past. The abstraction of the photographs reflects distance and proximity; the pictures become a new form of painting, using photography as a medium. They become a narrative that naturally unfolds, informs itself, is led, takes chances, approaches dangers and is not afraid to let go. I photographed in South India in 1997, 2001, 2004, 2006 and 2008 in the environs of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.