A Reading Room curated by photographer Anshika Varma consists of a travelling pitara of photography, books and book-making.
Offset Projects an initiative that hopes to create channels of engagement with photography and book-making through
continued workshops, residencies, artist talks and curated pop- up photo-book reading rooms. The Offset Pitara is keen to look at the multiplicities that exist within spheres of our public worlds, mass migrations, environmental impact on the human race and in personal associations of reality connected by memories and relationships.”
The photographic document has stood over time to present itself as an unbiased, detached witness to a fact often erasing the presence and sensitivities of the photographer behind it. The supposition of a final truth, a single uncompromising fact that can be captured, has placed upon the photograph and its creator a great weight. Within this medium, the growth and emergence of the photobook has allowed an authorship to the act of creation of personal independant voices.
The influence of ones’ perception in the creation of our truths is presented with greater strength with the form of the book. Objects, situations and narratives become symbolic of these multiple realities. While envisaging the aspects of our
metaphorical environments, the books included look to prod deeper into an understanding of how we perceive the world
today. It is keen to explore approaches to photographic bodies of book-making that give light to the various truths we surroundourselves with.
Photobooks exhibited at Offset Pitara –
1. A proposition for departure- Sohrab Hura
2. A Peal of Spring Thunder- Ishan Tankha
3. Call Me Heena- Shahria Sharmin
4. Control – Cagdas Erdogan
5. Dalit- A Quest For Dignity- Nepal Picture Library
6. Ebifananyi- Set of 8 books – Andrea Stulteins
7. Harvest- Valentina Abenavoli
8. Hold Nothing Dear- Alaknanda Nag
9. Ill be looking at the moon but ill be seeing you-
Harikrishna Kattragada
10. Kanu’s Gandhi – Kanu Gandhi
11. Look its Getting Sunny Out Side- Sohrab Hura
12. My Birth- Carmen Winant
13. Shauna 2007-2009 Sean Lee
14. Shenaznameh- Amak Mahmoodian
15. Sun Gardens Cyanotypes by Anna Atkins
16. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency- Nan Goldin
17. There are no homosexuals in Iran- Laurence Rasti
18. This is Mars- Xavier Barral
19. When Abba Was Ill- Adil Hasan
20. Witness- Edited by Sanjay Kak
21. Will My Mannequin be Home When I Return- Arko Datto Offset Pitara continues till 24 th March at Senate House, University of Madras.
Text contribution – Anshika Varma
