Whether it’s the haunting image of a girl walking towards the Jallianwala Bagh memorial, a dark capture of a child standing beside a collapsing house, or two burqa-clad women discovering the pristine, white onion-shaped dome of the Taj Mahal, these photographs tell us a story that goes beyond the obvious. We are looking at photographs that take us beyond documentation, towards mood and hidden narrative. ‘Missing Piece/Peace,’ a new show featuring the works of photographers Hasnain Soomar, Masood Sarwer and Vishal Bhutani, is on at Nine Fish Art Gallery in Mumbai. Being held in the post-pandemic monsoon, from August 4 until August 31, it has been curated by Georgina Maddox.    

We are informed that the exhibition began to ‘come together’ in the time of the COVID-19 Pandemic, when the world and its people were dealing with the difficulties of lockdown, unemployment, the sudden death of loved ones, a heightened sense of isolation and panic. It was hard, especially for daily wage earners, and migrant workers who were unable to go out and work. Recording this, but moving beyond it, the exhibition highlights the works of three photographers, bringing together a narrative of a variety of expressions and view-points into the conversation. 

The show looks critically at the search for the ‘missing piece’ of human existence that completes the puzzle of life. That sense of peace that has been shaken up to the level, where many people have either leaned heavily into their faith and spirituality, saying ‘I am safe as my God is kind and has taken care of me’, or have leaned away with a sense of disillusionment — ‘Why is God punishing us?’

 

The photographers — Hasnain Soomar, Masood Sarwer and Vishal Bhutani — are all freelance artists whose work touch and reflect these changes that we faced during and after the pandemic, with spirituality as an underlying inspiration. They have similar but separate view-finders that catch a varied expression when we are aligned to them. 

Soomar’s first introduction to photography occurred at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London that led him to discover both digital as well as analogue. His experience of photographing the Star Trek sets and exhibits at Hyde Park led him to discover his love for digital astride his engagement with analogue. He is currently in pursuit of an actual experience of light and dark...of capturing the image and exposing it on photographic paper from digital negatives; it is indeed not just a technical but a spiritual process and journey for the artist-photographer.

Sarwer is a visual artist and a documentary photographer based in UP. “My artistic practice has grown up around the tensions surrounding identity, gender, human rights, and climate emergency,” says Sarwer. The curator has chosen mostly his images of children as a theme since Masood has worked on children working in the Beedi factory, and has articulated their take on dealing with the great universe and God. The way children approach the concept of God is so different and unique to what adults are conditioned to believe in.

Bhutani practises long-term, in-depth projects and spends most of his time documenting issues largely revolving around ecology to social structures and the contemporary issues in the Murshidabad district region where he grew up and is intimately familiar with. “In 2017, I was pursuing my LL.B when I got a fellowship sponsored by the Yes Foundation. Then I took my first photos and understood what I wanted to do,” says Bhutani, retracing his journey. “It is a moment where you see the unseen and a direction that you haven’t thought of before. I find it important to spend time with the issues that one is focusing on as it reveals various aspects of the issue that may not be apparent at first glance,” says the Delhi-based photographer, who has been working with minority issues, tribal and indigenous peoples and women’s issues. 

The world has inevitably changed after COVID-19, economically, socially and medically. The need for resilience and sustainability is undeniable and the way multilateralism operates has had to change to reflect this very different world, by many researchers and clinicians as an important way to cope with trauma and distress. This exhibition presents us with another set of views and options.  

‘Missing Piece/Peace’ brings to fore that fragment of life that evades us, that completes us and the acknowledgement that life is never static but a constant search for the sense of stillness, that peace that is hiding that missing structure in the whole puzzle that requires completion.