Shared Ecosystems, Geographic Realignments

Sabih Ahmed & Sohrab Hura
Sabih Ahmed and Sohrab Hura discuss in its entirety, their recent collaboration for the exhibition titled Growing Like a Tree. Ahmed reflects on their curatorial approach in constructing the exhibition as Hura’s practice of book-making, where the walls are less heavier, rather fragile and trembling. Hura speaks about navigating across political geographies – Dhaka, Kathmandu, Delhi, Siem Reap – while building on collective energies and shared experiences. From discussing the exhibition’s initial conceptual provocations - to - how the show can travel to different places and become a new kind of a tree, the conversation expands into looking at shifts in lens-based practice in the last decade and disruption of context around the images.  

For more information please visit Ishara Art foundation’s website and read Sohrab Hura’s text about the exhibition.

Sabih Ahmed

Sabih Ahmed is the Associate Director and Curator of Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai. His curatorial work and research focus on modern and contemporary art of South Asia through diverse itineraries, languages and inter-disciplinary formations. Prior to joining Ishara, he was a Senior Researcher and Projects Manager at Asia Art Archive from 2009 to 2019 where he was involved in the establishing of AAA in India (AAA in I) in New Delhi. He was a curatorial collegiate member of the 11th Shanghai Biennale curated by Raqs Media Collective and is on the Advisory Board of Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation, Delhi.

Photo Credit: Anusha Yadav

Sohrab Hura

While the core of Sohrab Hura’s work lies in photographs, he tries to break that form regularly and extend it into film, text and sound. In 2010 he made Pati a ten minute short film, which is an assemblage of photographs, collected sounds, film footage, his voiceover as well as text, to give a glimpse of life in a village in Central India. Continuing his experiments with this half moving form, he has made The Lost Head & The Bird (2017), Bittersweet (2019) & The Coast (2020), under his self-publishing imprint UGLY DOG. In 2019 he won the Aperture – Paris Photo Photobook Of The Year Award for his book The Coast. His film Bittersweet was awarded the Principal Award at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2020. He lives and works in New Delhi.

Photo Credit: Self Portrait