2024

Images by Mikkel, Kaldal and Offset Projects

Curators Note: In the English language, the word manifold implies multitude, plethora, variety.  In mathematical physics, “manifolds” allow for complicated structures to be expressed and understood in terms of geometric spaces, like those depicted on an atlas, that are relatively better understood. Drawing from these multiple readings of the word ‘manifold’, we present this current exhibition of Indian contemporary art.  

India is a country comprising multiple ethnicities, innumerable languages and comes with a mind-boggling array of associated complexities. Pluralism has long served as an essential cornerstone in this land: in all its conceivable forms, be it religious, political, cultural or philosophical. Of late, there have been significant concerted efforts in this country to collapse its manifold diversities and reduce it to a monolithic map based on majority, language, and religion, while simultaneously opening the land and its people up to the manifold violences of the neoliberal world order, which constantly seeks out newer territories, markets and victims. Arko Datto’s curation intends to resist this and build solidarities in its own way.

Using a plethora of artistic strategies rooted in the image, the artists presented here propose unique perspectives on reading contemporary India, simultaneously distilling, and expanding upon the manifold facets of their chosen topics to present cohesive artistic visions. The exhibition demonstrates both variation in subjects and in methods, from the documentary to and expansive multi-faceted artistic expression and includes photography, video, sound, installation and examples of the distribution of photography through photobooks, social media and zine culture.

The exhibition is supported by the New Carlsberg Foundation, the city of Aarhus (Kulturudviklingspuljen), the Danish Arts Foundation, The Augustinus Foundation, Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond, The A. P. Møller Foundation and The Obel Family Foundation. – Arko Datto

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Connecting Pages: Photobooks from South Asia
紙繫南亞——攝影書展

Images by Phovoko

Curators Note: A photobook is an object assembled from connecting pages of photographs with a designed narrative that allows readers to experience its artistic content, design layout, and material form. It is essentially an exhibition in bounded paper form. 

In similar ways, I am drawn to connecting people and enabling conversations about contemporary photography issues through photobooks. Since 2017, I have admired the sensitive photographic book-making processes in South Asia. These include, but are not limited to Offset Projects from India for their collaborative book-making, photo.circle and Nepal Picture Library for their dedication to archiving cultural history, and Tasveer’s pioneering efforts in Pakistan. These communities have conversations on photography’s evolution, therefore exploring identity formation through familial bonds and satirical commentary questioning patriarchy and religious taboos.

This exhibition draws together these three South Asian initiatives by inviting them to bring photographic works from their respective communities. Connecting Pages then becomes the ‘living book object’ to open a dialogue with the Hong Kong audience. Offset Projects Anshika Varma was also invited to co-curate this exhibition. Her work as a photographer and publisher, along with Offset’s engagement with South Asian diasporic voices, has allowed the exhibition to expand. Connecting Pages now proudly brings in independent artists and publishers working with photography from the South Asian region. This celebration of regional artistic voices led to their inclusion in the library collection of Phoboko (a Hong Kong based initiative for bringing people together through photobooks), therefore broadening the exposure of their work to Hong Kong’s photobook culture. 

Curator: Michelle Chan Wan Chee

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2023

MAZE COLLECTIVE

Images by Deepak Yatri

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HALF MOVING:  

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A SHARED ROOM

To fold, paste and turn the page is to impress yourself and your existence upon the memory of paper – a means to connect and find worlds of solidarity in the act of storytelling. 

The Offset Pitara, our travelling photobook library, has remained central to help us navigate the possibilities of the book as a means to understand the world we occupy. Our existence as publishers came from this urgency, to work with the book as a site of companionship and support. The works that occupy this space reflect on the growing community of artists who have been a part of our questions and experiments on how we can centre relationship-building as a publishing practice. Can this means of coming together offer an alternative to the afterlife of the book and free us from the fragility of the art object? 

We have the fortune to share this space with artist books that seek to deepen the sensorial relationship with printed matter, using visual language as a means to make space for reflective inquiry. In the works presented, the language and form of the book is guided by intention and desire. 

Moulding the book to locate the experience of reading is central to the deep and intimate relationships that appear on these walls and shelves. It is in the resonance of these encounters that the book finds its belonging.

Anshika Varma

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The Library Project

An exhibition to explore the relationship between books and people, the question of identities, inclusivity and exclusion within the library.