ABOUT THE FESTIVAL THEME: CROSSOVER

We live in an era of great change, where traditional narratives struggle to tame the movements of a world shaken up by global transformations into one fixed story. Ours is a restless world captured from multiple viewpoints, no longer made up of the voices of a few but rather millions of intermingling voices. We are no longer from one place or in one place: we are in-between, slipping between past and present, reworking the way we see the world.

The exhibitions on the theme of ‘Crossover’ will celebrate photography’s democratic role in challenging the way we see and understand the world, not only questioning collective notions of geography and history but also telling intimate stories of the construction of identity and the exploration of the self.

‘Crossover’ draws on the importance of plurality in historical and contemporary Indian societies. Shaped by a lengthy and complex history of trade and movement, cultural exchange has always been a major chapter in India’s story, an ever-changing process nourished over time by the steady flow of goods, arts and people that to and fro across and beyond her.

Now more than ever we bear witness to this constant renewal of culture fuelled by the intermingling of people from different states, faiths and social structures, spreading further out into the global diaspora. Nowhere embodies this diversity better than the dynamic city of Mumbai, the home of FOCUS, which for two weeks in March 2015 will become a hub of crosscultural contact open to all.