Everything you need to know about MAP Bengaluru’s first group photography exhibition embracing Tamil identity

In the contemporary art landscape of Bengaluru, a compelling new photography exhibition is rewriting visual narratives and challenging cultural monoliths. Vaanyerum Vizhuthugal: Roots that Reach for the Sky, currently on view at the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), is the museum’s first-ever group photography exhibition dedicated to contemporary lens-based practices. Curated by Jaisingh Nageswaran, this exhibition brings together twelve photographers and visual artists of Tamil origin, each presenting a distinct lens on heritage, memory, and identity.

Originally showcased at the Chennai Photo Biennale 2024–2025, the exhibition now finds a new home in Bengaluru, offering local and international audiences a chance to engage with Tamil art and culture in deeply personal and politically charged ways.

At the heart of Vaanyerum Vizhuthugal lies a refusal to homogenize Tamil identity. The phrase 'roots that reach for the sky' captures the dual movement of this exhibition—grounded in regional and familial memory, yet reaching toward expansive, speculative futures. The twelve artists presented here examine themes ranging from postcolonial Tamil identity, land and body politics, to queer intimacy and archival storytelling.

Artists like Alina Tiphagne delve into queer kinship and inherited memory using photography, text and moving image. Her work positions the archive not as static history, but as a dynamic tool of rupture and reclamation — a key theme in contemporary Indian photography.

Visual artist and speculative storyteller Osheen Siva, whose work spans digital illustration to immersive installations, brings a futuristic aesthetic rooted in Dalit and Tamil heritage. Their work fuses science fiction, queer agency and decolonial imagination, pushing the boundaries of visual culture in India.

Meanwhile, filmmaker Arun Karthick, known for his critically acclaimed film Nasir, adds a cinematic voice to the collection. His narrative sensibility and engagement with everyday realism strengthen the exhibition’s thematic depth.

Brindha Anantharaman explores gender, familial bonds and emotional resilience, while Krithika Sriram and Priyadarshini Ravichandran explore the intersection of personal history and landscape, focusing on marginalized identities in Indian art.

Several artists in the exhibition explore the complex relationship between land, identity, and memory. Sridhar Balasubramaniyam, whose work draws from Dravidian folk stories and tribal wedding ceremonies, uses performance-infused photography to connect the human body with the land it inhabits. His work is both intimate and mythic, embodying the intersection of tradition and contemporary expression.

Sathish Kumar, a self-taught photographer from Kanchipuram, turns everyday life into a poetic visual diary. From school picnics to rural landscapes, his images evoke nostalgia and the weight of lived experience.

Shankar Narayanan and Vivek Mariappan bring alternative photographic processes and still-life compositions into the mix, expanding the possibilities of lens-based practice in India. Mariappan’s analogue techniques and environmental portraits blend form with materiality, reminding viewers of the tactile dimension of memory.

April 19 - July 20, 2025.