Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, Sutapa Biswas & Al-An deSouza

Eleanor Sanghara Güstard inherited an old Nikon F50 from her late father. When the lens cracked, she kept shooting through it. Those “poor images” became a methodology for navigating her position between Britain and India, whiteness and brownness.

In this episode I read Eleanor's essay, where she traces a lineage of South Asian photographers who use technical strategies, from blur and opacity to degradation, to work against the colonial demand for clarity. From Umrao Singh Sher-Gil’s pioneering work from the 1890s through the mid-20th century to Sutapa Biswas and Al-An deSouza’s contemporary work, she shows us how unreadability becomes a site of autonomy.