Traversing on lonely terrains
These are the cities where Rahul has stayed in the last decade for studies and work.
The show titled, Solo, at Goethe Zentrum contains visual excerpts captured by Rahul from New York, Paris, Sydney and Hyderabad. These are the cities where Rahul has stayed in the last decade for studies and work. He has carried within himself the loneliness of staying in an unknown city, which gets manifested throughout the series. His pictures depict a unanimous lack of warmth and emotional connection between people in the cities. He excels in expressing the intensity of an honest, self experienced void that hung like a black cloud over the urban landscapes visited by him.
Rahul tells more, “Cities have a way of culturing solitude. We rub shoulders with hundreds of people whom we will never speak to. Solo scrutinises urban loneliness in different cities at different times over the past years. The work invites the viewer to spend a little bit longer than the fleeting moment with the mundane on freeze-frame, and perhaps resolving for themselves, the lines separating loneliness and solitude.”
The curator of the show Pratika Yashaswi tells more about the concept of the show, “It is very intriguing to see what people behave like when they think no one is looking, and what they are like when they notice someone noticing them with a camera. This idea and aspect gets highlighted throughout Rahul’s works.”
The photographs in the show reinstate multiple gazes captured through a roving camera. It is amazing to see the peculiarities of the four cities as well as to realise the fact that there is an undercurrent of speed and fast momentum that runs common in all of them. The people are caught in their mundane, unpretentious and natural stances and yet there are a few portraits that look straight into the eyes of the camera.
The series of photographs unveil Rahul’s innate passion for photography. And yet photography is just one of the many endeavours that keep him busy. Rahul has worked with educational institutions earlier; at present he is a professional psychologist and is also a stage actor. When asked as to how he is able to master varied activities and if there is a common thread that binds them all together, he agrees, “Yes, the common aspect in all my interests is the fact that they all connect and relate to ‘psychology’, which is my strongest passion and inspiration.”