Dayanita Singh takes her museums on a tour

By putting together analogue sequences of architectural designs, ranging from Ellora caves in Maharashtra to Studio Mumbai [founded by Bijoy Jain], Singh is altering ideas of space, time and deception in photography. And in Kolkata—starting with the ongoing Bengal Biennale and then moving to the Indian Museum—she has drawn from her archive of classical music and dance history to curate Museum of Tanpura, featuring icons such as Vijay Kichlu and Girija Devi.

Each of the exhibitions—present and future—are extracts from Dancing with my Camera, a retrospective of Singh’s works, which was on tour across Europe from 2022-24. Like with all her recent works, this show too started with the archive. During the covid-19 lockdown in 2020, Singh stumbled upon an old cache of contact sheets of performances, weddings, funerals and everyday scenes. These turned into memory keepers of sorts, and Singh spent considerable time scanning and enlarging the sheets. “I felt like my head was going to burst. In one of the sheets, I saw a woman praying and a man seated on a bed. When I enlarged it, I realised it was Gangubai Hangal. Then there is an image of a woman who people are bowing down to, and I found to my surprise that it was Kishori Amonkarji. I had spent an entire Guru Poornima in her house, photographing her and her granddaughter, who is now a great singer in her own right. So, I had this whole memory bank, which I had no recollection of," says Singh.

The images had a memory of their own, which did not fade with time. Some of these dated back to the 1980s when she had spent considerable time photographing Ustad Zakir Hussain, or travelled on the musicians’ bus across the length and breadth of the country, capturing rehearsals, journeys, impromptu performances and conversations. The experience was extremely intense, akin to going down a network of underground tunnels and finding connections between them. This exercise further reaffirmed to her that the photographer of the future could not just be a taker of the image but an archivist as well—someone who could make meanings between the past, present and future. “(Publisher) Walter Keller, whom I met at the start of my career, once told me to not worry about making books or exhibitions but to build my archive. So much of my archive is still untapped; it seems endless. One does not realise the wealth of material that rests with you," she says.

Singh is currently curating and designing Museum of the Musicians’ Bus, which will be shown at Kolkata’s Indian Museum, till 31 March. Her mind is now dotted with hyperlinks— an image, a recollection, a memory leads to something else. For instance, the mention of Pali Hill in Mumbai leads to a folder of images in her subconscious. It opens up photograph after photograph of actor-politician Sunil Dutt’s house taken between 1982 and now. In one, she sees Dutt with his granddaughter in a room, which features a portrait of his late wife, Nargis; in another, the granddaughter is now older and has been photographed in a different setting. “Maybe it has something to do with my personality, that instead of going horizontal, I go deeper into a theme or subject," she says.

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Being in the contemporary art space instead of the traditional photojournalistic environment allows her the freedom to dream up her own structures to display the work. In January, she will move from the gallery at Indian Museum to the corridors, where Singh will install free-standing structures containing images from the Museum of Tanpura and Musicians’ Bus to be on view till 31 March. Photographs of the late maestro Rashid Khan—a beloved resident of Kolkata—will be displayed as a pillar on the first floor. Singh revels in the opportunity to break down barriers between the viewer and her images, and the corridor acts as the perfect space to do so. “The secret to this perhaps goes back to 2008 when I installed the photo book, Sent a Letter, as an exhibition at Satram Das Jewellers, Park Street, Kolkata, where it remained for the next 10 years. For me, the dissemination is as much a part of photography as the imagemaking itself," she says.

In a 2023 article in The New York Times, Siddhartha Mitter wrote about how Singh had parted ways with conventional methods of producing—and selling—photography. “You cannot buy her work in signed and numbered silver prints. Instead, she collaborates with the German publisher Steidl, using offset printing techniques to produce photograph collections, some stacked in wooden boxes, that the buyer can shuffle and combine—making the work affordable and, in Singh’s view, alive," he writes. “She works with Frith Street Gallery, in London, but also sells her boxes and “book objects" directly at events. That way, she cultivates her own collector base of friends and supporters— and independence."

It also brings up the role of the photographer as the curator—when you allow the archive to throw up forms at you, which then becomes your work. She might visit the Indian Museum later this year only to realise the need to add text to the museums. Her flexible structures allow her to make these extractions and modifications. Or, when the works come to the corridors, she might take a stool and sit there to converse with anyone who wants to hear about the musicians or tell her their stories in turn. “Who knows, I might start an oral history project thereon. My work does not end when the exhibition goes up. I have to activate the works, and not limit them to the idea of contemporary art in India, which is to show art on walls or only within commercial spaces," says Singh.

It is the viewers and their experience that ultimately complete her work. When someone buys Kochi Box, Studio Box, or any other of her book objects containing a set of images, which can either be displayed in a wooden box or open up as accordion books, they become mini exhibitions in their home. The viewer then takes on the role of a curator. “Your family member can tell you that they don’t like one image and might ask you to bring forward another image from the box or another accordion book out for display. It means my work is alive in your house," says Singh. “A work becomes art only in its dissemination."

At this point of time, 66 homes in Kolkata have the Ladies in Calcutta exhibition going on in their houses. A new book object, Bawa Chairs, will embark on a similar journey at the upcoming edition of the India Art Fair. Singh feels free of all systems now. “I earn a living through boxes. So, I have found an economic model as well," she adds.

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In the next few chapters of the exhibition series, one will see a celebration of Mona Ahmed, a third gender person who remained Singh’s close friend till her death in 2017 and the muse for many of her works, including Myself Mona Ahmed—at Gallery White, Vadodara. Museum of Dance, which was empty in Mumbai, will be activated in Vadodara with images of Mona, Birju Maharaj, Yamini Krishnamurthy, choreographer Saroj Khan and Singh’s mother, Nony. The viewer will also get to see a video of Mona reciting shayari.

Another extract will open at Ahmedabad’s Kanoria Centre for Arts, an institution designed by Singh’s friend and collaborator, the late B.V. Doshi. Along with her architectural montages, she will show pillars of architects, titled Bawa Rocks, Corbu Pillar and BV Stairs, and a video of Doshi talking about the photos that Singh took at his home in Ahmedabad.

The multi-city tour is yet another way of making her work accessible to people. Next year she might do something similar in Varanasi or Chennai—hosting four to five exhibitions across different venues for three months. “I have exhibition copies of my work. I can keep showing them at a different place every winter. In a way these are not just my archives, but also a repository of cultural history in modern India. People should be able to access them, think about them and remember these artists," says Singh. The possibilities are immense—the Rashid Khan pillar, for instance, could be displayed at Ganges View hotel on Assi Ghat, or she could create a pop-up exhibition at the Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh in Varanasi. Finally, the hope is that other artists will begin to think beyond the usual art circuit of Delhi and Mumbai, and take art beyond the audiences who visit the white cube space. “In a way I am doing what the musicians’ bus did in the 1980s, when we could clamber on in Kolkata, go to Gulbarga and Bidar, stay in school dormitories and visit the homes of Gangubai Hangal and Mallikarjun Mansur. I am taking the musicians bus on a tour again."