Sep 13 2026 to Sep 13 2026 3 p.m.

Where

Museum of Art & Photography (MAP)

Kasturba Road, Bengaluru 560001

Event Description

Join us for the opening of Archive Frictions, a Gallery-on-Demand exhibition at the Sasken Multimedia Gallery. The exhibition will be inaugurated with a public symposium exploring women’s work and presence through photographic archives.

At the heart of Archive Frictions is a remarkable archive of photographs discovered by PhD researcher Alexandra Gow at the National Galleries Scotland. Believed to have been taken in the Indian subcontinent in the early to mid-1900s, the photographs offer a unique glimpse of women in university settings. In contrast to many stereotypical representations of India from the period, these images focus on women in educational spaces and are marked by an unusually intimate photographic style.

Two contemporary artists — Priyadarshini Ravichandran, based in India, and Steffi Klenz, based in the UK, have responded to the archive through the creation of new visual works. In doing so, Archive Frictions fosters a dynamic dialogue between historical and contemporary perspectives, illuminating the evolving representation of women in photography across time and cultural contexts.

Please find more details about the symposium and launch below:

Date: September 13, 2026

Time: 03:00 – 06:30 PM

Schedule:

03:00 – 03:30 PM: An Introduction to Fast Forward & Archive Frictions by Anna Fox

03:30 – 04:00 PM: Launch and walkthrough of Archive Frictions 

04:30 – 05:15 PM: Presentation by Suryanandini Narain

This talk will discuss two photographic albums by Mary Louisa Booth (1896-1939), titled the Antiquities of Kathiawad (c. 1910) and The Watson Memorial Institute, Rajkot (1893). Together, the albums are testament to the Raj’s interest in India’s pre-colonial archaeology, as well as its civic modernisation under the guidance of the British government. Mary Louisa Booth’s albums possibly make her the first woman photographer in the field of Indian archaeology.

05:30 – 06:30 PM: Archive Frictions: Contemporary Interpretations

This discussion will feature artists Priyadarshini Ravichandran and Steffi Klenz in conversation with Mira Brunner regarding their creative responses to the archive and their practices at large.

About the speakers:

Anna Fox is an acclaimed British photographer and Professor of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts. Working in colour, Fox first gained attention for Work Stations: Office Life in London (1988), a study of office culture in Thatcher’s Britain. She is best known for Zwarte Piet (1993-8), a series of portraits taken over five years that explore Dutch black-face folk traditions associated with Christmas. Fox is currently working on the research project Fast Forward: Women in Photography, for which she has been awarded a Leverhulme International Networks Grant, an AHRC Engagement Fellowship and an AHRC Follow on Award, as well as being supported in China, the UK, Nigeria and India by the British Council. 

Suryanandini Narain is Assistant Professor in Visual Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research and critical writing focus on photography, visual culture and aesthetics. Her recent scholarly work includes co-editing Framing Portraits, Binding Albums: Family Photographs in India (Zubaan, 2024). 

Steffi Klenz is a London-based artist who approaches photography as an expanded visual discipline. Her work has been exhibited widely across the UK, including at the Royal Academy, the British Museum, the Wellcome Collection and Camden Art Centre in London, and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. Internationally, her work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki, Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, CICA Museum in South Korea and FotoMuseum Antwerp. She has participated in major international exhibitions and festivals, including the British Council exhibition presented alongside Documenta in Athens (2017), the Biennale for Contemporary Photography in Germany (2020), the International Biennale for Photography in Belo Horizonte (2021), the Tokyo Biennale (2023), Bodø European Capital of Culture (2024) and the International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Uzbekistan (2024).

Priyadarshini Ravichandran is a photographer from Tamil Nadu working closely with recurrent themes emerging in relationships that root, reveal or unsettle her. She is compelled to tell stories of women, our lives and the land. She seeks to collaborate with researchers, friends, institutions, trees and animals- placing her in unexpected intersections. She received the Parasol Prize from the V&A Museum (2023) and the Quai Branly Museum award(2024).

Mira Brunner is a Bengaluru-based artist, archivist, and writer. She works across media, is interested in deep time and epistemology, and is informed by queer & disability studies. She has exhibited her work at the Museum of Art and Photography, Bengaluru (2026), 24 Hours Neukölln, Berlin (2026), the Chennai Photo Biennale, Chennai, (2025), neunKelche e.V., Berlin (2024), Dekalb Gallery, Brooklyn (2024), and University of the Arts, London (2023). Her writing has been published in Lassitude Zine, Sick Magazine, The Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, and Out of Print Magazine. On weekdays, she’s the chief archivist at QAMRA – the Queer Archive for Memory, Reflection, and Activism.

Archive Frictions is delivered in collaboration between Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), in Bengaluru, the National Galleries Scotland (NGS), in Edinburgh, and Fast Forward: Women in Photography. It is supported by the University of Creative Arts and British Council.