An ambitious survey of the technological and artistic development of photography in India.

Shortly after its invention in Britain in 1839, photography arrived in India. It was used by the British as a tool to document and exert power over the people, architecture and landscapes of the subcontinent but it also became a medium for Indians themselves to express their unique experiences of the country.

This exhibition brings to light the previously overlooked Indian photographers who worked in parallel with their foreign counterparts from the 1850s onwards.

Pivoting around two key dates—1857, the year of the Mutiny and 1947, the year of Independence and Partition—it is an ambitious survey of the technological and artistic development of photography in India that examines the role the medium has played in charting the country’s modern history.