
(Published:
Vārtā, 4(1), 2012: 46-51)
Annu
Palakunnathu Matthew’s work is firmly grounded in cross-cultural
experience. Professor of Photography at the University of Rhode
Island, she appropriates images from diverse sources and juxtaposes them to
make incisive comments about displacement, family, social
inequities, and cultural memory. I chatted with her at her
Providence
home about her background, artistic strategies, and her life
between/across cultures.
Sunanda K
Sanyal: Where were you trained in the US?
Annu
Matthew: I completed my MFA at the University of Delaware. The
most useful feedback I received was from photographers in the
community, especially Nancy Brokaw, who ended up writing
eloquently about my work, and David H. Wells, who is now my
husband!
SKS: You
have said in other interviews that you consider yourself a
photo-based artist, but not a traditional photographer. Is that
because you manipulate images a lot?
AM: If I
say I’m a photographer, people think that the final image is the
image I photographed. But for most of my work, that is just the
starting point. Only one of my portfolios uses un-manipulated
images.
SKS:
That’s the Memories of India series, right?
AM: Yes.
SKS: You
were born in
England,
went to India when you were ten, and finished high school and
college there. Then you came to the US to study photography?
AM: Yes.
I also worked in
India
for six years in information technology, which ironically has been
useful for my work now.
SKS: In
your Re-Generation and other series, the family emerges as
a dominant theme. Is that because of the dislocated nature of your
cultural identity?
AM: Not
always. I think it’s more about those who are important to me. A
photo of my stepdaughter and me, compared to that of a Native
American mother and daughter, reflects the changing face of
families in the US, as there are more marriages between cultures.
SKS:
Memories of
India
seems to me less digitally manipulated than the others. Why did
you make a different decision for this project?
AM: The
portfolio started at the end of graduate school, and I’ve
continued doing it over the last twelve years. When I started out
as a photographer, I thought I wanted to be a photojournalist and
go back to India and fight for women’s rights. But I don’t have
the personality for that. So I found another way to explore
women’s issues in a way that I was comfortable with. A good
example of this is Bollywood Satirized, where I
manipulate and satirize Bollywood posters. Memories of India
started during this “photojournalism” phase. None of the different
approaches that I experimented with worked. Out of desperation, I
started using a Holga, which is a twenty-dollar camera that has
very few controls. But it does have a plastic lens, which makes
the edges blurry and distorts the image slightly, like a memory.
SKS: It
seems to me that you wanted this project to be more directly about
nostalgia. Despite all your dislocations, there is a sense of
longing, for a home, so to speak.

AM:
(Laughs) Yes, despite my misgivings, there is a longing for home.
But it’s also…I see the way I work as a left brain-right brain way
of thinking, where the Memories of India images are created
more intuitively. The work is about the gestures, smells and
sounds that I miss from my cultural homeland. My undergraduate is
in Mathematics and I didn’t want to get bogged down with the
technical aspect of photography. But it does allow me to
understand the science part of photography to use this simple tool
(Holga) effectively. It is wonderful that I can just enjoy the
sensory aspect when I am photographing, especially as all my other
work is more conceptual. To me, my Re-Generation series is
a combination of Memories of India and my other work.
SKS:
Have you ever thought about experimenting with other media?
AM: I
have primarily been interested in photography and how it is
expanding into new media. I choose my technique based on the idea
that I am working on, which usually starts from a photograph.
Recently, I have shifted to the moving image that is created from
several photographs. I have been using I-pads to display the
Re-Generation series, because this particular device is small
enough to be embedded in a frame.

SKS:
Does contemporary theory inform your work?
AM: It
has to. I feel now my work is less about being from India and more
about living between cultures. So I’m becoming more and more
interested in theories that relate more to that. It’s something
that I want to explore further.
SKS: Do
you think art is capable any more of raising social awareness in
today’s media saturated visual culture, especially if you’re
operating in the mainstream art world?
AM: I
have made some conscious choices about my career and life, part of
which is teaching at a research university, so that I don’t have
to depend on the sales of my work, or my work doesn’t necessarily
have to be saleable to collectors. Because of that, I’m able to
make the work I want to make. There are certain bodies of work
that I have done that are more saleable than others, but I feel at
least they’re coming from what I want to say. Also, looking back
at my work, I usually start with imagery that is part of the
popular media, familiar to people outside the art world. That
makes it a hopefully a little more universal, inviting an audience
from outside the art world, from the larger public.
SKS: Do
you think the way your images on the hate crimes after 9/11 were
received had the potency to raise social awareness?
AM: It
already has, at least for those who attend my presentations,
especially in the USA. It does make them aware of other people
who look different, and a little more empathetic about them. In
this context, let me also tell about you a different experience.
For Re-Generations, I went to
Vietnam
and Israel to broaden the body of work outside of
India.
I met people who agreed to be part of the project, primarily
through trust. When I went to their houses, one of the first
things I did was take out my I-pad and show them an example of
what I was going to do. Seeing their faces transform, as they
immediately understand the project, was a thrilling experience.
SKS: Why
particularly
Vietnam
and Israel?
AM: I
went to
Vietnam
primarily because of its history with the
United States;
and the fact that there are people who have been displaced through
trauma. One of the few things you think of taking in such a
situation is your family photographs. I chose to go to Israel as a
large number of people living there have originally come from
other countries.
SKS: Do
you think it is necessary for an artist to have a political cause
behind their work?
AM: No,
I don’t think it’s necessary. I love work that’s just about the
aesthetic. But it’s not what I want to do, or maybe it’s not what
I can do.
SKS:
Particularly because your work deals with family and personal
memories, are you comfortable with diverse interpretations of your
work by your audience, or do you insist on the question of
intention?
AM:
Well, personally I hope that there are certain things they get.
But if they read other things into the work, that’s fine too. My
work deals with my experiences, which obviously reflects family,
culture and dislocation.
SKS: No,
not always directly about family. But your work, in contrast to
that of many others, often has a personal touch to it. This is
especially because you work with small-scale photographs, which
has an intimacy attached to it…
AM: And
a sense of reality. I have always been interested in the old,
historical photograph and the stories it can tell, but also hide.
SKS:
Exactly. So artists who work in that mode often are very emotional
about the audience getting “it”. Do you feel there is any “it” to
“get” in your work?
AM:
(Laughs) Of course, it’s very satisfying when the families
involved in Re-Generations “got” my work. But also, when I
put my work up on the gallery wall, I kind of divorce myself from
it. It doesn’t feel like my work any more.
SKS: How
do you feel about the reception of your work so far in your
career?
AM:
(Chuckles) I don’t think I’m ever satisfied!
SKS: How
has your work been received in India?
AM:
Tasveer represents my work in India. I was surprised how
positively the Indian from India series was received there.
Also, Peter Nagy gave me my first Indian exhibition of the
Bollywood Satirized series in Delhi. It was shown at the Press
Club of India, so that journalists could see it; and at the
Habitat Center. I especially try to show the Bollywood
Satirized work in non-traditional spaces. The Bollywood
work was not as positively received.

SKS:
Meaning what?
AM: This
was in early 2000. First of all, it wasn’t really considered
“art”. And also because it says things that one isn’t supposed to
air in public.
SKS: And
this was coming from the “insiders” of the art world, or from
“outsiders”?
AM: I’d
say both.
SKS: In
India, manipulation of Bollywood posters can have really negative
reactions.
AM: Yes.
I also had negative reactions to the Bollywood work here in the
US.
SKS: In
what sense?
AM: I
showed the work at my University, and some Indian graduate
students --who didn’t know that I am a Professor there—protested
and wanted the show taken down.
SKS:
Why?
AM:
Because they said it showed a very negative side to India.
SKS: How
do you respond to that?
AM:
(Chuckles) Well, first, it isn’t a positive image, and second, the
work wasn’t made to be liked. The work is based on my experience
and perspective of growing up as a woman in
India.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with it. It is meant to create a
dialog, which the students refused to do despite requests to meet.
SKS:
Okay, let’s be the devil’s advocate for a second. Don’t you find
that despite its serious message, it partly reinforces the
negative stereotypes about India that Americans already have?
AM: I
can see what you’re saying, but one can’t deny that there is some
truth to the woek as well. I think the problem is if people think
that the whole of India is reflected in one body of work. Whenever
I present my work, I start by paraphrasing the narrator of The
Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor where he writes, “This is
MY story of the
India I
know,
with its biases, selections, omissions, distortions - all mine”.
Memories of India, for example, portrays another aspect of
India.
India is so multi-dimensional. It is also interesting that since
these students are recent immigrants from India, they are a little
less likely to have an honest perspective of their homeland. The
generation of Indians born here, on the other hand, loves it. They
may not agree with every aspect of it, but they’re willing to talk
about it.
SKS: I
think that’s because first of all, they are brought up in this
culture, with openness to debate; secondly, they are less invested
in its positive/negative dichotomy. On a separate note, what do
you think of the contemporary Indian art world?
AM: It
has really exploded in the last ten years. I think it would be
really exciting to be living there as an artist right now. It is
thrilling to see a lot of interesting work coming out of India.
But at the same time, there seems to also be more commoditization
and less introspection. This is just my view from going back to
India two-three times a year and visiting the Art Summit for the
last two years.
SKS:
What do you think about such efforts as the Art Summit?
AM:
There seems to be the same people on the panels for the last two
years. This year, though, it does look different. There doesn’t
seem to be a variety of curators who have the background/training.
This is perhaps changing, albeit slowly.
June 3, 2011.
Providence,
Rhode Island.
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