*^{Images from the project are now on display at LOKAME THARAVADU, Port Museum venue in Beach road, Alappuzha, Kerala.
Show curated by Bose Krishnamachari}

---

Through the Glass Darkly

Travelling is a means of liberating curiosities and its history has been marked with diverse objectives. Capturing images during journeys either perfunctorily or with specific attention have been marked in interpretations of artistries, a domain in which photographs are considered imperative since flexibility of the medium has performed as an adept merger of the real and the imaginary. 

As an indefeasible part and invention of the present world, photography has changed visual perceptions and is transforming as a medium both reassuringly and disquietingly. An existing pattern of consumption through such produces of visual reference are often dominated by images captured in fervour and momentary impulse; the memories of experiences that remain as residue long after the occurrence are strengthened through these references often as make-believe accounts or half-truths. Yet these fabrications fill the gaps of amnesia – what one would prefer to remember as truth.

Gireesh GV has been traveling widely since his early days of practice as an artist-photographer, with the act being both a method and a prerequisite for his creative exercises. The journeys by train across the country, has stimulated his imaginative inclination with the never-ending railway tracks, the piercing train whistle and the rapidly changing landscape outside the window. He has documented persistently these swiftly passing frames, which the movement of the vehicle has offered with utmost precision and a belief of ephemeralness.

One never encounters the same setting while on a unidirectional travel on a train, as a photographer a single chance to capture a frame caught his penchant. These photographs shot between 2008 and 2021; offer glimpses of the world, from the train window, where the later function as the frame. Every glimpse of the exterior while being in mobility is unique, since each scenography was as a single chance to decide and capture an image within constricted time.  This feature makes Gireesh GV’s, spontaneous shots, relevant in a context where visual cognition is saturated with swiftly changing images every day.

These photographs are vestiges that represent his approach towards observation; they undo the original experience of being in motion, evoking curiosity as an inverse method of capturing motion and turning them still.  A solitary tree,  a pack of unclaimed luggage,  people in a queue, a glimpse of someone’s courtyard through an opening, all speak of different stories of different people and surroundings.

An extension of these stills cumulatively appear in a video with a series of images changing at a regulated pace. Two complimentary tools, image and sound, with images surfacing and disappearing with the rhythm of a track that is imitative of an audile experience of a locomotive, negotiates between the real and the simulated, providing a certainty of experiential truth and yet drifting away  with each frame. Duration of each image on the screen determined by a subtle balance between time, space and content generates a language distinct from the conventional expression of videos consisting of twenty-four frames per second. In both the expressions, still photographs and the video a commonality of namelessness leaves ones wondering with queries-  what place or incident do they speak of ? What specifics can guide to interpret them other than the aperture that a window of the train allows? The image of hazy glass, the world beyond, and the scratchy surface of the photographs are treated in a manner, which alludes excavating from foggy recollection of unfamiliarity, it departs with inconclusive hints on the exterior –the stories from where they originate will remain a mystery to the viewer.

Text: Avijna Bhattacharya

---