The art of visual storytelling
A Discussion Room with Nitesh Mohanty, where he talks about his book “Nowhere”- and the significance of capturing the everydayness of life without any filters.
Nitesh Mohanty is a visual artist who graduated from Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay & acquired post-graduation education from NID, Ahmedabad, specializing in Textile Design; He has been a design consultant to various brands within retail, fashion, media, publishing & the hospitality industry. Over the last 16 years, he’s worked with clients such as Mocha Coffees and Conversation, Shoppers’ Stop, Penguin Books India, Rolling Stones, SmokeHouse Grill, Films Division, Children Films Society of India, Oxfam India, Amnesty International, etc.
He also teaches Visual Communication, Art History, Photography, and Storytelling in Institutes such as MICA, NID, FTII, TISS, and Shrishti, sharing his passion for everything he loves.
He self-published his first photo book, titled “Nowhere.”
Tell us a little about yourself, especially your youth, and how you were introduced to photography, image making, and visual arts.
Photography was introduced to me at a very early age in my life. When I was young, I remember my father had a Rolleiflex 2.8 F camera. It was a strange object because it offered an inverted image on top. He would take family portraits of my mom, sister, and me, which stayed with me as a memory. He passed on that passion to me.
Later in my life, I went on to study at Sir J J School of Arts, and that’s where I met Diya, who I fell in love with and who went on to become my wife. She was the one who handed me the first SLR of my life, a Pentax K1000. It is strange how the constellations came together to ensure that I get introduced to this fascinating medium, which later became a way of my life.
When I joined NID five years after my BFA, the photography module formally made me understand the magic behind this medium. My professor, Errol, who was a sensitive and agile eye, handed me the Nikon FM10 while introducing us to the world of Cartier-Bresson and all the great masters, with an understanding of what this medium can do and how process-oriented this medium is…When you take a film roll, load it carefully within the camera, take a photograph, go to the dark room, develop it within an intermingling of chemicals, and see the photograph emerging, it feels nothing less than magic. From there, I was in love with something, which became a long-lasting love affair and gave birth to many stories.
In an interview with Midday a few years ago, you quoted Susan Sontag, who said, ‘To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, and mutability.’ Why is capturing, documenting, and sharing moments and stories so powerful and important?
If we look at human evolution from the very beginning, we have constantly been trying to document our everyday life. If you go back to the cave paintings, there are images of men fighting wild bulls because they were not just engaging in the everydayness of life or getting food from nature; they were also driven to document life as it unraveled. They wanted to leave those stories behind because those moments might seem like a banal unfolding of every day, but those were also stories of struggle, survival, life, and death.
From how people gather, write and photograph stories, you get a sense of your place in their life, trials, tribulations, hope, and glory. So, documenting and archiving becomes not just a way of finding your meaning and purpose in what you are doing but also a mirror to everyone’s life and the unfoldings of the world elsewhere. In that sense, you come to terms with the fact that the only way we can look back and understand how life has unfolded and how we have witnessed what was unfolding is through the process of documentation, which can be in different ways. That’s why people write poems and make art, music, and images.
Regarding personal stories, we often avoid uncomfortable themes or topics and prefer to capture just the beautiful things. Why is sharing diverse stories about pain, loss, or grief important?
The more I look at it, I understand that human beings have a way of compartmentalizing their experiences. Because of my exposure to the world, I was introduced to people, writers, artists, and photographers who didn’t distinguish between their good experiences and their not-so-good experiences. That taught me that life could never be black and white. It’s in the greys that we exist. To accept the greys, you have to accept everything. Loss, despair, death, life, glory, hopefulness, and hopelessness.
Nan Goldin, has photographed her life as if she’s conversing with people who came into her life and left, either through broken relationships or death. The ability to hold onto those moments with so much authenticity, rawness and intensity, made me wonder, why don’t we embrace life in all its totality the way Nan Goldin could?
Closer home, I got introduced to Prabuddha Dasgupta, one of the finest photographers we’ve ever had, and through his body of work called the “Longing,” I was exposed to this evocative way of looking at our own life. Prabuddha, through his intimate and poetic black-and-white photographs, allowed us to accept that there cannot be two lives. The life you live for yourself can also be those you live for others. He broke the barriers between what you want to show and what you want to hide. He took off all the layers and filters and was willing to be naked then.
So, when you’re trying to photograph something, you are not trying to be selective in what you want to show the world. You want to be honest enough to express what you feel primordially in your heart through images. That’s why I chose not to be discreet about what my photography engagement should be.
The journeys of Sorabh Hura, Prabuddha Dasgupta, Nan Goldin, and all the filmmakers and writers who were authentic to their practice gave me the courage to engage with my authenticity rather than being selective.
“Nowhere” is a raw, intimate, and evocative narrative through photography and poetry, brimming with love and life. Coming to “Nowhere,” when and why did you start working on capturing images and putting “Nowhere” together?
There’s a wonderful word -confabulation- which means when you look back and draw from your life stories, most of it is something you’re making up in your mind just to make sense. So perhaps, I will confabulate when I try to tell you how I got to “Nowhere.”
If I had to start at a distinct point, I remember realizing that Diya would not be with me on this journey forever. Since I was familiar with the medium of photography, I felt that I should hold onto whatever I could because I knew at some point in time, I’ll be left with nothing but these images; this is all that I’ll be holding onto as a form of solace and taking refuge in.
There was never a conscious effort to consider this as a project or a book. Due to desperation or the realization that nothing lasts forever, I started photographing and documenting the everydayness of our lives, the feeling of time slipping away from the grip of our palms. I was also a witness to everything that she was going through. I was trying to understand the role that I’m playing as a caregiver, husband, lover, friend, and also as an artist, and how I’m trying to assimilate and make sense of all of this. That’s where I think “Nowhere” began to take shape, and it didn’t even have a title; it was just me holding onto ephemeral moments.
Could you take us through putting “Nowhere” together, from the curation, photography, editing, composition, and publication?
One of the most important things in any artistic collaboration is the idea of trust. You need to entrust someone with your labour of love wholly. I’ve spoken to many filmmakers and directors who say I trust my cinematographer as if he or she were part of me. They’re all entwined in the same journey, and they think alike in a very synchronized way. Even if there are points of differentiation, there is enough room for reflection and reconciliation.
Deshna (Founder of Studio Anugraha) has done an immense amount of work in publishing art-based concepts to understand how and what she wants to bring forth as a graphic designer. When you look at the catalogue designs done for ‘TARQ,’ she goes around with a certain thought and a template, a uniformity, and an understanding of the layout and composition, which I loved. I used to adore the nuanced sensibility that she poured into the little books she would create for ‘TARQ.’
In one of our early conversations, Deshna wanted me to consider having my writing in the book because she said that so many people love my writing and that I should incorporate all of that.
Then, the act of creation was also the act of exclusion. While in the process, I constantly asked myself, is this what I want? Hence we started excluding things we felt were unnecessary or were becoming distractions to what we ultimately worked towards. I was very conscious about how we could try and evoke certain feelings rather than showing something in a very direct or specific manner. The whole thing became a song spoken in symbols.
We went with a certain sense of abstraction because I had shot thousands of photographs from which the edit comes down to what you see within the book. We had to question why we were removing a particular image from the flow, and we wanted to put a rhythm to the book. If you look at the book now, it’s broken up into parts because there is a single poem, and each line becomes like a header. Each line of the poem is a portal to a series of images. All of this was part intuition and part design.
As designers or artists, we don’t try to let others become a part of our dream or vision. When you do that with a relationship of trust, it elevates the idea to some other level. Photography can be a very solitary journey. It is all about the photographer’s visions, dreams, ideas, and world. The moment you discard that construct and let other people become a part of that journey, you are creating something more collaborative and collective in terms of thoughts, ideas, and execution.
Without Deshna & Mansavini, the designer who brought Nowhere to life, my images would still be lying in a folder with nothing to call home.
Can you describe some of the book’s favorite parts or narratives?
The whole book is very special to me, and I don’t call it a book. It is a part of my life. It is a testimonial to what I’ve lived, loved, lost, and found. When one of my students came to me and asked ‘how did you come up with something so beautiful?’ I replied, “ I didn’t come up with something so beautiful; life happened to me.’ I was there just to hold it in its brokenness, as tenderly as possible, but you found beauty in it.”
So, I don’t have a specific favorite part, but I want to touch upon the fact that when you look at the book and when other people hold the book in their hands, they feel different things.
That’s the beauty of art; it’s not just one thing. Despite it being so personal and intimate about my journey with Diya and my trips with life and death, people have been able to see parts of themselves in it. It almost becomes like a mirror for them to feel certain things that perhaps were dominant for a very long time.
If you look at art, photography, music, or poetry, it speaks differently to different people. It allows people to draw their stories and reflections. One must detach themselves from the idea that this work is only theirs.
When I was in a book-making workshop with Valentina Abenavoli, she said something wonderful, ‘the day you make the book, the book is not yours anymore.’ I went in with the idea that once it’s out there, people have to embrace it and find their meaning and metaphor in those images.
What did you feel when the digital images transformed into something physical that you could hold in your hand? Did you see the images in a new light, or did it feel different?
Every time I have held the book and turned the pages, I’ve discovered something new, despite that image being entwined to my reality. I think that’s the beauty of translating something from thought to reality, from digital to an actual tactile page. It’s one of those moments in your life when you see something take shape and have a precise definition of it. Nothing can replace that moment of holding your own print or a set of prints stitched together as a book. I know putting a book together is expensive, and it’s not like everyone can create self-published books. But I hope someday; every photographer experiences this incomprehensible feeling.
Today the world has also allowed us to look at formats like zines, where you can print your photographs in some form. I would urge people to try and print their photographs and not just be happy by looking at them in a digital form. You can critique it totally differently, depending on how big or small you’re realizing your printed image. I know many people who bought “Nowhere,” wrote to me saying how they wished it was slightly bigger in terms of the shape and size of the book. But the moments were intimate, so I was conscious from the beginning. I wanted something people could hold in their palms; it should not become a coffee table book. It would have lost its intimacy, its warmth, and its fragility.
I come from the old school era, when we used to develop our film rolls, and there was a lot of mystery as to what will unfold and, what would unravel when the photograph gets developed. I feel blessed that I’ve been able not just to print my images but also be able to put them together as a book. Engaging with your art or work in such a tactile, physical form is exhilerating. It’s almost like moving your hands over a canvas and touching your paint. So, I think touch is essential to our existence.
You mentioned earlier that poetry helps split the images into chapters. Is there a visual narrative, or does the order of the images have a meaning?
Yes, there is a sense of decay. If you hold the book and pay attention to the images and how the images are arranged, there is a definite sense of something wonderful blooming and turning into something withering with time and age. It is a chronology of events that Diya was going through and that I was witnessing. I was also experiencing, as helplessly as I could.
For me, writing and photography were almost like forms of catharsis. They have allowed me to survive. If not for these two mediums, I would’ve lost myself in the darkness of desperation or even not been able to comprehend what was happening in my life. These two forms of expression have allowed me to stay sane and try and make meaning in life.
When we were thinking about the text in the book, I shared a lot of poems with Deshna; I think around 10- 15 poems. We didn’t want the words to clash or fight for attention with the images. We wanted the words to be almost like the breeze that held the cloud together or allowed it to drift.
I remember reading one of the interviews of the Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama, who said, ‘I’m driven by the smell when I photograph’. I was always fascinated with that idea, and I thought, can the words be like drifting music or like a breeze that nudges you in a certain direction?
Deshna & I wanted to keep it open in its interpretation and reading. Many people don’t even know that it’s a single poem broken in parts, but if you read all the lines together, it forms a poem, an emotion, and an amalgamation of feelings. It also allowed us to create pauses, and I feel the music can become overbearing without the pause. Those empty pages with single line points are for a pause and reflection before you move on to the next set of images.
What are your reflections on the entire journey of putting “Nowhere” together, and what are your takeaways or contemplations that you’re left with?
It feels like my heart is light and heavy at the same time. Light because there’s something that I was carrying all the time. I promised Diya that I would put this book together; unfortunately, she was not there when the book happened. But when the book was finally published, there was a feeling of unbearable lightness that I couldn’t fathom; I felt like I had exhaled and let something out. It’s heavy because it is always there before me, and I can’t ignore it. Memory is a strange thing. Memory is not just memory; it’s not just happy or sad; there is so much entwined in it.
The book reminds me of a passage when I couldn’t fathom what was happening. The book also reminds us how we must continue to seek beauty within the bitterness or our inability to comprehend what is happening. I think that is why the book is so many things to me that I can’t just say I’m happy that it has happened. It’s just a way of me understanding that I lived through the richness of life and lost what was most endearing to me. It is a eulogy and a poem. It is also a little song of despair.
But I must say, the book has allowed me to think of the next thing I want to do, and now I’m working on a book. If it comes out someday, it’ll predominantly be my writings. In this book, there will be few images held together with my words, whereas in “Nowhere,” there were a lot of images and very little writing. At this point, the working title is “Perhaps.” “Perhaps” is an exciting word because it lacks certainty. It could be this, but perhaps it could be that, also. I think that’s what life is. Life is not very defined. Life is not very certain. So, I’m writing and putting “Perhaps” together.
“Nowhere” has allowed me to be engaged in a completely different form, more with my writings. So, it has given me that way to believe that when we live a certain passage of time, we must try to put that together in some form to acknowledge. To understand that I was a part of it and I lived and lost, and I still want to live love and taste life the way I can, with all the bruises and all the glory.
The book arrives at a vital time, amid the pandemic, when we are all trying to make sense of things, and narratives of despair and illness surround us. What message must you share through “Nowhere” to help cope with the new norm?
The more I try to live and understand life, no matter how unpredictable life seems, we must try and comprehend that life never promises anything better. Life was always about struggles. It was always about the trial by fire. It was always about the perseverance and grit through which we make sense. What is beautiful and sad is that a very young generation has been exposed to the idea of being tested, the idea of understanding their thresholds, because you hope that life is kind to you when you’re young. As you grow, you build the tenacity and resilience to deal with what life throws at you. But the more I try to engage with my students, my young friends, and everyone to whom I’m talking, I feel that there is very little room for them to hold onto the idea of hope.
I think hope has become brittle, but hope is all we have. Hope can be monumental in our journey because if I had given up on hope on this journey with Diya, I don’t think I would have been able to put together what you hold today and what you know as “Nowhere.” Hope will make sense, and someday we can walk out of the darkness and embrace the light. Hope is what keeps us alive. Unless we embrace the darkness of the night, we will never value the dawn knocking at our door. It’s important to human existence and survival to try to make sense of everything that seems meaningless, hopeless, and futile.
A I’m growing old I constantly wonder how the world is falling apart and how we are fraying at the edges. But while going through the whole madness, we must keep the hope that flickers within us. I think “Nowhere” is a work of hope. It is an answer to despair. That is why artists create; to engage, navigate, and maneuver through despair and hopelessness. Not just through things that seem like they will consume them, but through your creation and artistic expression, you stay alive and give others a chance to believe in life.
Do you think social media applications like Snapchat and Facebook have a role to play in distorting photography?
To a certain extent, yes, but to a considerable extent, no, because I started writing about my life and posting my photographs on Facebook. It was just a medium for me. I was not trying to let Facebook do something to my emotions. It was just like a blank canvas or a journal on which I used to write. In that sense, it is completely in your control how you are letting this medium define you, or can you be authentic enough that you don’t let any filters lend a certain color to what you are creating and putting out there?
Know more about Nitesh at nimo_obscura
Article by Rishana Ummer K.
Interview hosted by Reshma Rose Thomas
