New Delhi: Two young artists have come together to explore a new art form - a fusion of words and images by superimposing photographs on couplets of poetry.
Photographer Akriti Sondhi and poet Shubhodeep Pal have worked together to create "poetography" artworks that are on display at an ongoing exhibition at India International Centre here.
Titled "Searching for the Sun," the show is a product of the duo's fascination with different art forms. The works have been created over a period of three years.
"The Indiestani Project, which began three years ago as an experiment, ran the 'poetography' project online and then we discovered that there might indeed be an opportunity to present something fresh to audience offline as well," says Pal while discussing how the project came into being.
The exhibited body of work focuses around themes of memory, love and discovery, by seamlessly merging the words and images, to tell a story.
"Our Brittle History", one of the poems penned over a photograph of a woman behind the curtain portrays a lover's longing for her beloved. The sense of separation between two lovers comes alive in the "poetographic" artwork.
"It is difficult to say where a poem comes from. But with this one there was a line that came to me 'you kiss a strangeness endlessly' which became the second line of the poem later.
"Strangely I had seen this photograph of Akriti's earlier but never considered it for a poem. It was when I started thinking of the line that I wrote and we incorporated it with photo," says the 27-year old poet.
Pal has also authored a book titled, "Interruptions" (2009), a collection of poems published by Writers Workshop. Akriti, whose interest in psychology helped her explore photography at a "deeper" level, says that the pictures clicked by her have now got a new meaning with Pal's poems, because unlike him, she finds it difficult to express herself in words.
"All my photographs attempt to capture a certain moment and emotion. I have been photographing since long but I feel that my pictures were never complete since I am not very expressive with words. Shubhodeep's poetry has given a different meaning and essence to all these pictures," she says.
The duo, who exhibited their work at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Mumbai earlier this year, feel that the project is also reflective of an introspective journey undertaken by an individual.
"This project reflects the journey of discovering who we are and what actually we are not quite often," they say. The eight-day exhibition is on till October 16.
