On Could 15, Portugal’s Museu do Oriente opened the exhibition, Foto Arte Ganesh: Goa, Images and Reminiscence. Curated by Professor Rosa Maria Perez, senior researcher at Lisbon’s Centre for Analysis in Anthropology, with help by Douglas Santos da Silva, the exhibition focuses on the work of late photographer Krishna Navelcar whose studio as soon as thrived on Rua José Falcão, a bylane of Goa’s capital metropolis, Panjim.
Though Navelcar’s Foto Estúdio Ganesh might now solely be a distant reminiscence, what the exhibition reveals is the legacy this Goan photographer created. Navelcar’s profession bridged the durations of Portuguese and, then, Indian rule in Goa, spanning the Fifties to the Eighties.
Throughout this time, the photographer captured photographs in official contexts, together with occasions attended by the final two governors of Portuguese India, Paulo Bénard Guedes and Manuel Vassallo e Silva. Navelcar additionally documented the 1963 go to of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to post-Portuguese Goa.
The photographer’s photographs would seem in native Goan newspapers, however he additionally labored with radio stations throughout Goa’s Portuguese and Indian durations. For example, his footage present up within the Boletim da Emissora de Goa (a publication of the official radio station in Portuguese India) and he was additionally employed as a photographer for All India Radio from 1963 till the time of his retirement.
But, Navelcar additionally educated his digital camera on native goings on of an on a regular basis nature, corresponding to weddings, spiritual rituals, and festivities. Due to this, the exhibition showcases a diverse array of Twentieth-century Goan historical past and life.
The pictures exhibit, which runs until October 12, additionally enquires into problems with heritage preservation given the dearth of official visible archives in Goa, erstwhile capital of Portuguese India (1510-1961). On June 5-6, a symposium titled By way of a Goan Lens: Multidisciplinary Approaches will even be held together with the exhibition.
In an interview, Perez affords insights into Navelcar’s in depth oeuvre, themes of the exhibition and what it means for his footage to be on show in Lisbon greater than a half-century after the tip of Portuguese rule in Goa.
Excerpts:
As a researcher, your scholarship on South Asia has tended towards issues of non secular id, gender, and social relations. How did you first find out about Krishna Navelcar and what connections, if any, did you see between his pictures and your earlier analysis? In flip, what led to the creation of this exhibition?
I wish to make clear that my analysis pursuits primarily centre on social buildings and problems with discrimination and marginality, somewhat than on spiritual id. Whereas spiritual id is a crucial facet – significantly in analysis concerning the caste system in India – it’s extra of a subsidiary consideration in my work. Alternatively, I discover that ladies’s research affords a extra applicable framework for my analysis than gender research.
My first encounter with Krishna Navelcar’s brother, the painter Vamona Navelcar, occurred within the mid-Nineties, but I used to be not launched to Krishna till I used to be invited to evaluate the importance of a considerable assortment of negatives – over 15,000 – held by the Fundação Oriente. The extraordinary richness of this photographic archive culminated within the just lately inaugurated exhibition following roughly eight years of labor with the gathering.
As an anthropologist, my curiosity in pictures traces again to the earliest figures within the area, notably Margaret Mead, who included it into their analysis. I’ve been captivated by the interaction between pictures and anthropology for a few years, significantly as up to date anthropologists have begun to systematically examine this relationship, transferring away from an earlier give attention to colonial pictures.
Though I’ve not regarded myself as sufficiently specialised to jot down extensively on pictures, I’m now contemplating additional analysis based mostly on collections of Goan photographers at the moment preserved in Portugal. It’s also value noting that I’ve been educating visible anthropology for a few years – initially with Professor Lina Fruzzetti at Brown College, and extra just lately by way of a course I developed on the Indian Institute of Expertise (Gandhinagar), titled Anthropology of Visible Programs, with a core strategy to pictures. I’ve additionally supervised theses on pictures and movie.
In your curatorial word to the exhibition, you comment that Navelcar’s pictures open up “a extra complicated narrative of Goan historical past”. You recommend that these photographs might problem colonial conceptions of the area, which is notable on condition that Navelcar typically functioned in an official capability, commissioned as he was by state companies to doc numerous occasions in what was then the capital of Portuguese India. What are you able to inform readers about Navelcar’s official work and the way do you foresee the exhibition providing new methods of interested by the previous as Navelcar chronicled it?
Krishna Navelcar’s official pictures, commissioned by state companies within the former capital of Portuguese India, transcends merely reflecting the colonial perspective or serving as a passive instrument of the state.
As an alternative, his in depth assortment of pictures affords a complete view of almost 40 years of Goan historical past, overlaying the tip of Portuguese rule and the social and political modifications that formed fashionable Goa. Navelcar documented state occasions and public ceremonies, however he additionally captured on a regular basis life, showcasing the range and resilience of the Goan folks.
His pictures depict full of life celebrations, on a regular basis road scenes, and moments of transformation, typically emphasising the area’s wealthy spiritual and social variety. In doing so, Navelcar’s photographs problem the slim views typically current in colonial documentation, which tried to outline Goan id in restricted methods.
They immediate us to replicate on how official pictures can each help and problem mainstream historic narratives, and invite us to recognise Navelcar not simply as an official chronicler but additionally as a witness to and participant within the formation of Goan reminiscence. In abstract, whereas Navelcar’s official function might have restricted him to reproducing colonial viewpoints, the depth and number of his work provides complexity and richness to the narrative of Goan historical past.
Of your personal course of in deciding on photographs for the exhibition, you muse upon how Navelcar’s footage present an “intricate interaction between [himself as] photographer and [his] topic [that] underscores the importance of each element … [These features] are all captured in time, reworking an unusual {photograph} into a robust testomony of human connection and emotion”.
As guests to the exhibition take within the show, what would possibly they glean of Navelcar between him doing his official job as a commissioned photographer and his personal expression of private and creative company?
It might be a big oversimplification to limit a set of over 15,000 negatives – particularly since this assortment doesn’t signify the whole lot of Navelcar’s work, with many further negatives held by his daughter – to merely his function as a commissioned photographer.
The exhibition showcases photographs chosen from hundreds of portraits, road scenes, and pictures capturing on a regular basis life. These photographs clearly lengthen past the scope of his commissioned work, each earlier than and after the tip of colonial administration. This broader visible file highlights Navelcar’s engagement with Goan society in all its complexity, countering any try to diminish his legacy to that of mere official documentation.
With regard to your second query, each commissioned {photograph} of people represents a fancy negotiation among the many expectations of the commissioner, the inventive imaginative and prescient of the photographer, and the company of the topic.
That is significantly evident in portraits or photographs of individuals, the place the ensuing {photograph} transcends a mere replica of the commissioner’s intent, rising as an alternative from a dynamic interaction between the photographer and the topic. Whereas the photographer operates inside the frameworks established by the consumer or company, in addition they infuse their distinctive perspective, aesthetic decisions, and moral issues into the method. Topics might pose, resist, or collaborate, influencing their illustration each consciously and unconsciously. Their expressions, physique language, and willingness to interact play essential roles in shaping the ultimate picture, highlighting the {photograph} as a product of interplay somewhat than a one-sided endeavour.
Even inside a short or formal task, the photographer interprets the scene by way of choices concerning framing, timing, and focus. These decisions can subtly or overtly problem, nuance, or reinforce the meant message. Though the commissioner outlines the broad function and context, it’s the photographer who negotiates the particulars: the strategy to the topic, what to incorporate or exclude, and the way to reply to the topic’s reactions.
This negotiation is very crucial in ethnographic contexts, the place sensitivity to the topic’s dignity and company is of utmost significance. Such negotiations underscore that even official or commissioned pictures are the results of dialogue, not a unilateral course of.
An necessary truth is that Krishna Navelcar named his studio for his late brother Ganesh, who died very younger. Ganesh was additionally the identify with which the artist Vamona Navelcar (1929-2021), one other of the photographer’s brothers, would signal his canvases, additionally as an homage to his late sibling. Each Krishna and Vamona have been within the make use of of the colonial state, the previous in Portuguese Goa and the latter in Portuguese Mozambique. Regardless of the geographic distance, the brothers shared an in depth bond. What would possibly we make of the emotional and political entanglements within the lives of those creative brothers?
Nobody is best positioned than you to deal with this query, given your in depth and profound scholarship on the work of Vamona Navelcar – partly in collaboration with Vishvesh Kandolkar. My very own response would possible replicate a lot of what you’ve got already written, the lectures you’ve got delivered, and the exhibition you curated. Nonetheless, I’ll try to supply a reply.
Each brothers navigated careers inside colonial state buildings, but their inventive output persistently mirrored a deep engagement with problems with id and belonging. By honoring their brother by way of their skilled identities, they engaged in a delicate type of resistance towards erasure and marginalisation, thereby asserting a familial and cultural reminiscence inside the frameworks of colonial modernity.
Politically, their lives exemplify the paradoxes skilled by colonised people who contributed to official cultural manufacturing whereas concurrently cultivating areas for private and collective that means. The emotional bond between the brothers, maintained throughout continents and colonial boundaries, underscores how affective ties can each improve and complicate creative company. Their shared tribute to Ganesh serves as a website the place private grief, cultural symbolism, and the politics of reminiscence converge, difficult the oversimplified narratives typically imposed by colonial and postcolonial histories.
At current, there is no such thing as a official repository of visible tradition and historical past in Goa. As your curational essay explains, “The evident lack of visibility of photographers’ collections in Goa has resulted in a big deficiency of systematic research on pictures within the area.” Other than the mental challenges that come up as a consequence of this unarchived photographic historical past, what’s misplaced culturally and artistically by not having a everlasting assortment of such pictures in Goa? On this regard, what intervention can an occasion like Foto Arte Ganesh supply and are there any plans to carry the exhibition “again” to Goa?
With out these visible information, the lived experiences, social transformations, and various identities which have formed Goa may very well be forgotten or lowered to official or externally constructed narratives. The absence of a everlasting photographic archive leaves Goa’s cultural id weak to erasure, oversimplification, and exterior definitions, somewhat than permitting it to be regularly reimagined and affirmed by Goans themselves.
The exhibition goals at doing greater than merely showcasing photographs; it revitalises collective reminiscence, confronts historic amnesia, and honors the folks and variety of Goa. By presenting these pictures in a curated public setting, Foto Arte Ganesh not solely fills a niche within the historic file but additionally encourages new avenues of dialogue, analysis, and creative expression, fostering a shared sense of heritage and belonging.
Trying forward, as a curator I recognise the important must diplay exhibitions like Foto Arte Ganesh in Goa that may restore a big visible historical past to its rightful place and act as a catalyst for additional archival initiatives, public engagement, and the potential growth of a everlasting photographic assortment. This endeavor would mark a significant step towards addressing the historic significance of Goan photographic heritage and selling continued cultural and creative renewal.
In conclusion, I wish to emphasise that my function on this exhibition and its catalogue is just not doctrinal and undoubtedly not patronising. The work I’ve performed is the results of over 30 years of “observing” Goa, an countless supply of inspiration, formed by its artists, researchers, and creators. I view myself as a vessel by way of which this inspiration has flowed. Finally, this work rightfully belongs to Goa and to the Goan folks.
R Benedito Ferrão is an Assistant Professor of English and Asian & Pacific Islander American Research at William & Mary, Virginia, USA and its recipient of the Jinlan Liu Prize for College Analysis.
