Arpan Mukherjee

Arpan Mukherjee (b. 1977, India) is an Associate Professor of printmaking, visual art at Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan. He received a BFA and MFA in printmaking from VBU, Santiniketan in 2001 and started his career as an artist at the end of 20^th century, mainly practicing photography. He is one of the earliest researchers on alternative photography in the country and has developed practices using gum bichromate, cyanotype, salt print, wet plate collodion and silver gelatin emulation according to India’s climate. Since 2001, he has researched 19^th century photography methods and materials and incorporated them into the mainstream visual art arena. His works are mainly related to socio-economic and political issues, working with a documentary/conceptual format with a satirical approach, using both 19^th century photographic and digital mediums according to the demands of his works. He has participated in a number of exhibitions and workshops and has given lectures on photographic history, practice and his own work, both nationally and internationally. In 2011, he was awarded ‘Photographer of the Year’ by Better photography magazine.

Fairer People = Beautiful People = Powerful People

Using the wet plate collodion process, a photographic method that dates back to the anthropological documentation of colonial India in 19^th century, a group of young adults whose skin was dark in colour were invited to explore the relationship between fairness of skin, preferential treatment in their family and broader society. Many of the participants had experienced discrimination, growing up with a deeply rooted complex about the darkness of their skin resulting in a pressure to make themselves lighter by regularly applying fairness creams – a Rs. 3000 crore commerical industry.

Mukherjee invited the individuals to be photographed using this process, letting them take the lead on how they wanted to be portrayed; as ‘beautiful and powerful’ people. Some exaggarated this distorted notion of beauty by applying whitening powder to their faces, some did nothing, some turned their backs to the camera. The artist informed his subjects that the process used Iodides and Bromides of silver which is not sensitive to red and yellow but sensitive to blue and UV light, so those who had a more red or yellow tone of skin came out darker.

A discussion was initiated exploring the use of fairness cream and the obsession with white skin in Indian society. The responses were interesting. Discrimination in terms of colour still prevails though most people think that it derived from the colonial past of this nation, including the group that were photographed. The group involved, who were between 20 to 30 years old, also thought that it played a role in terms of power in the public sphere and was linked to discrimination. They believed this simple equation: fairer people = beautiful people = powerful people. Some spoke about how this has been shown historically. As a consequence, they tried to be fairer at times, though most of them also expressed disappointment with fairness creams. There were also some people who refused to take part in the discussion.

Following the discussion, there was a long session of making ambrotype photographs with Mukherjee’s 10”X12” wooden plate camera.