Raqs Media Collective

Osama in New York

While the whole world looks for Osama bin Laden, I found him here in New York, somewhere on Broadway, in the general direction of Soho, tagged as the 'Best of New York'

Hands on Wall (Southend on Sea)

A picture found by chance while browsing inside my computers lost files. Taken, then forgotten, then remembered again. Continuing in the spirit of building a body from the surfaces of walls. Walls had ears, walls have eyes, walls have hands.

I always knew walls had ears. Recently, I have come to know that walls have eyes too. Once you begin looking for them you notice walls looking back at you, inquisitively. It is quite remarkable to think of the kind of things that a wall just stands back and watches. Here is a wall in Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi that stared right back at me some weeks ago. (It also advertises an 'Eye Camp' for free ocular check up)

And here is another wall with eyes - this time looking out into the middle distance behind me in Paghman, Afghanistan.

I got back a few days ago from Kabul, from five intense days of leading a workshop on image making and the city organized by the Goethe Institute in Kabul. Kabul felt strangely familiar, like a North Indian small town grafted on to a desolately beautiful landscape. Looking up, I could see mountains, looking ahead, I would see barbed wire, looking around, I would see security guards armed with AK 47s.

Yet the city (and the people) had a strange gentleness, which I am still trying to think through in my head.

Its surprising how delhi too is becoming a city of text graffiti. Actually i should say, graffiti in English.
I took the following picture in Khan Market where the 2 big curving corner walls make for an inviting whiteboard. The rumour goes that the road to the airport has/had a comment on state violence. Will try and see if i can go down that road in the daytime someday.