A Dialogue Between Sam Mohan and Angela Burdon
This dialogue took place between Sam Mohan and Angela Burdon in August 2018.
Themes mentioned: Photography in Sunderland, being outsiders, engaging communities, the Western Gaze, imperfections, commercial photography, India, controlling our own narratives, creative collectives.
Artworks mentioned: “The Autochthons: 16.233305/74.599995”, Sam Mohan, photography, 2018.
Angela: Hello Sam. I haven’t prepared any interview questions for you. I want this to be a casual conversation between two photographers, a collaborative exchange of sorts. The intention behind this interview is to examine the discourse behind our creative motives.
Sam: Sure! Let’s begin!
A: I want to begin with a little history. You and I met as MA Photography students at Sunderland University some years ago. I believe we connected based on our shared experience of being outsiders and our fascination with chavs. What initially brought you to the North East of England?
S: I wanted to learn and improve as a photographer. It was quite fancy those days to be exposed to a foreign country, considering I came to the U.K. a couple of decades ago for my education, it opened up a whole new world with brand new perspectives and possibilities.
A: In what sense?
S: I was exposed to a brand new culture or rather a variety of cultures while living in England. The education system was more self-negotiated and not classical spoon feeding.
A: It may be worth mentioning that you do not come from what many would consider a ‘traditional’ Indian family. Your father is a Hindu military man and your mother a Catholic nurse. They are, I’m assuming, quite liberal and progressive in their thinking. You seemed to have been given the space to investigate your creative interests freely.
S: Exactly.
A: What was the biggest shock when you got to Sunderland?
S: I think, first of all, it was the sanitised environment. It felt like a place out of a painting.
A: That’s quite interesting because sanitised isn’t a word I would associate with Sunderland.
S: I see your point. However, I was coming from 90’s India, a place which cows freely roam the streets.
A: I do find that fascinating actually.
S: I think the second shock was to find out that Sunderland locals spoke their own version of English. It sounded like a foreign language to me. It took me three months to decipher their accent.
A: Same! I distinctly remember concentrating on a person’s lips to catch every syllable and then piecing together context clues to decipher what they were saying! What did you think of the people? For the most part, though, I felt that the people were nice, somewhat curious but welcoming. Culturally, what was the most concerning to you?
S: Everything was completely different. The weather, food, people, basically everything was so alien to me. I was in shock and awe most of the time. I can’t remember precisely for how long I stayed in a state of confusion.
A: I agree! It took a while for me to get myself together too. I think your past experiences of Sunderland is entirely relevant to where you are now and the work you do in your practice. What we try to do with Lungs is to cultivate a space for artists at the beginning of their career. I think it will be useful to hear that a successful, established artist began his journey in the North East of England.
S: Sunderland absolutely changed everything for me. It helped me change my perception towards photography in general. Photography was not merely about taking beautiful images anymore as I learned how to research, compile, articulate, contextualise and execute my ideas visually.
A: Yes! That was a big difference for me as well in terms of not only just shooting a great photograph but also breaking down my intentions as to how and why. It got me to really start questioning what exactly I was trying to say and whom I was saying it to.
S: That’s so true!
A: I think it also helped me realise that I was less interested in becoming a photographer and more interested in learning about the practice in general and the practice of other photographers.
S: I know what you mean. Most importantly, throughout my studies, I started perceiving space and geographies in an anthropological light. It helped me transform my prejudiced patriotism.
A: Interesting. Can you elaborate on that?
S: For example, I was socially conditioned to believe homosexuality was wrong since it was a state crime back home in India. However, foreign exposure helped me overcome my infused phobia.
A: That’s amazing. I never knew! You never let your prejudice show.
S: The European gaze had always looked at India with a Third World perception and stereotyped India with a certain visual representation, usually based on poverty, mostly its deplorable state highlighted.
A: Yes! Even I had a preconceived notion of what India was like. Some of them were realised, but I really had no idea. Bangalore, especially, blew my mind when I visited.
S: That’s why I think it’s so crucial for us, people of colour, to be in charge of our own narratives and to tell our own stories.
A: Absolutely! Outside perspectives tend to be more whimsical as they don’t emotionally connect with communities. It’s a very fantasy-like interaction, usually with a Western saviour spin, always centred around whiteness. I think it’s because these interactions are often quite voyeuristic; like outside looking in. How can you capture the true essence of a person and not actually know them? Only recently in my own work, especially when I began working in a curatorial capacity, I felt a responsibility to my culture, to blackness, to protect it and honour it all costs.
S: You said it. I completely agree with you. With Pinterest, Instagram and other digital platforms, there is no dearth of perfect images. Even the documentary works I see these days are more voyeuristic. They are clearly being created by people who are not familiar with that particular community or environment.
A: Yes! Not only that but you can also feel it when an artist is merely recounting what they saw as opposed to sharing a part of themselves! I remember as a kid, flipping through National Geographic and looking at photos of children in African countries and thinking, these are beautiful...but also feeling a bit uncomfortable. As an adult, however, I understand the root of that uneasiness.
S: Exactly. I want to take the power away from the voyeur and place it in the hands of my community. The “beautiful” is just constrained to a type of visual orgasm. In my opinion, it needs to transcend beyond the obvious. Presently I have been exploring the urban lifestyle, the so-called global lifestyle influenced by digital media and of course Netflix.
A: I think this is a good time to mention your “Autochthons” project.
S: Of course. The project is about natives of the region, who live with no internet significance; absolutely no connection to the digital world. If you search the name of their village on the internet, the only
info you get is their geographical coordinates. The complete title of the project is “The Autochthons: 16.233305/74.599995” which is their exact location on the globe.
A: Now I want to talk a bit about the shift in your practice. You now make a living out of commercial photography. However, in university, you were so focused on street photography and documentary. How did this shift to commercial work happen for you?
S: After graduating, I came back to India but I realised looking young didn’t help me raise art funding or even get an exhibition space for starters. Commercial photography started to give me a broad perspective of photography as a business. Then I began shooting everything....food, architecture, portraits, fashion, corporate, and magazines.
A: I guess it also gave you the financial security to realise your creative projects. There are still elements of the documentary in your commercial work. I still see you and your intentions in ALL of your work.
S: Absolutely, however, it wasn’t a piece of cake. I had to battle with a lot of issues such as creative differences, clients cheating you, unpaid commissions, paperwork and taxation.
A: Ah! That’ s exactly the stuff they don’t teach you in art school!
S: Yeah. It was all a slow learning process. Until I finally found a partnership with my wife Kalpana and together we started the Yolk Studio & Creative Habitat.
A: Could you please tell us more about Yolk and how you two got started?
S: Yolk started with a vision of collaboration, a place where we could get talented artists to come and collaborate and produce multimedia art and content. We wanted to separate the artists from the corporate greed, to provide resources for upcoming talent and to enable them to operate professionally with clients. By having an agent represent an artist, we could safe-guard the artists’ interest. Presently, we are in our 10th year with Yolk. We are also certified by Hasselblad, Behance, and we currently conduct various art collaborations.
A: 10 years? Wow! We are also trying to establish that collaborative effort with Lungs. We’re still in training wheels, but we want to be able to support contemporary artists in fulfilling their creative pursuits...both nationally and on a global scale. We do that now through publishing and conversations like this.
S: We work with graffiti artists, musicians, film-makers, photographers, stylists, make-up artists, contemporary dancers and so on. We have a technical partner in Poland helping us with photogrammetry, motion time lapse, lidar reconstruction etc.
A: That’s quite impressive. In your journey so far, especially with your personal work and with Yolk, do you imagine art can be used to shape positive outcomes for India and how it is perceived by the rest of the world?
S: You stole the words right out of my mouth! I have been working with quite a few Indian artists who, I believe, have the ability to rock the global stage. The visual medium, film/photography/multimedia have the potential to change perceptions by empowering native artists to collaborate nationally or internationally which could ultimately help preserve the heritage and evolve in the right direction.
A: Again, this goes back to us being the controllers of our own narratives. It is so powerful when our own voices are the loudest; when we can decide what aspects of our culture we are willing to share with the rest of the world.
S: Exactly!
Considered to be one of the most versatile photographers in India, Sam Mohan also works as a filmmaker. After completing an MA in Photography & Digital Imaging at the University of Sunderland, England, he co-founded Yolk in 2008, a creative studio based in Bangalore. Both his commercial and personal work is concerned with championing the Indian aesthetic, both nationally and worldwide.
Web: yolkstudio.in
IG: @yolkstudio
