Cinema Play House installation at Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame. Sep-Dec 2011

I will be there for the closing on July 30th. Would be lovely to have you there.

Cinema Play House -Podcast
http://www.daylightmagazine.org/podcast/september2010-0

Daylight/CDS Photo Awards: Winners Announced!

Written by Taj

It is with great enthusiasm that we make this announcement! We are humbled by and grateful for the positive response and interest to this, the first year, of the Daylight / Center for Documentary Studies Photo Awards; we received 328 entries for the Project Prize and 405 for the Work-in-Process Prize!

Stay tuned over the coming weeks for details about the award exhibitions, multimedia production and online feature of the incredible work produced by these winning photographers.

And now (drumroll please) we present the full list of the Winners, Juror Picks, and Honorable mentions:

PROJECT PRIZE
First Prize Winner
Nandita Raman
Juror Picks
Rachel Barrett (Hank Willis Thomas)
Priya Kambli (Vince Aletti)
Jan Lieske (Jamie Wellford)
Nandita Raman (Julie Saul)
Daniel Stier (Darius Himes and Alec Soth)
Honorable Mentions
Susan Bank
Matt Eich
Jason Florio
Eamon Mac Mahon
Michael Marten
Pierpaolo Mittica
Geir Moseid
Louie Palu
Melissa Ann Pinney
Martin Roemers

WORK-IN-PROCESS PRIZE
First Prize Winner
Elizabeth Moreno
Juror Picks
Erica Allen (Hank Willis Thomas)
Paula McCartney (Darius Himes)
Elizabeth Moreno (Vince Aletti)
Martin Roemers (Jamie Wellford)
Monika Sziladi (Julie Saul and Alec Soth)
Honorable Mentions
Jessica Auer
J Carrier
Dianne Davis
Eyal Dinar
Lorena Endara
Bepi Ghiotti
Maria Gonzalez
Holly Lynton
Sarah Sudhoff
Stratis Vogiatzis

Desire....may be...this is work in progress

more additions to Cinema Play House series...

My connection to the cinema halls originates through my mother's family who owned the first talkies cinema in my hometown, Varanasi, India. My memory is full of visits to this space but I had no photographs of it. This initiated my desire to photograph these transient spaces.

As I photograph the older cinema halls, some of which are still running, I realize, each of these spaces were built in a unique way, designed mostly by the ownerhimself, unlike the homogeneous, modern multiplexes . Over many years of being occupied these halls seem to contain cues to the psyche of the people who built it and who occupy it. I feel an intriguing play of elements in these spaces that is baffling. As if the space and its arrangement is a mirror of the occupier’s interior. It is these reflections, these cues that absorb me; manifestations of interaction between the space and the people, over time.

Ramblings...

The light has gone red not that I am in a hurry. Some cars make use of the green and travel the cross section. Its winter evening and dark already. Waiting, I fail to resist the temptation and roll forward just a few inches. In my rearview mirror I see a car behind mine. The smoke from it makes me think of the temperature outside. That car rolls forward a few inches too.

Cinema Halls in Kolkata

I am so happy I choose to go to Kolkata (Calcutta) to photograph the old cinema halls. There were far more than I had imagined. And by the end of 20 days stay I felt I will have to return to photograph them again. Aside from the cinema halls the city is so engaging. I can relate to it much better than Delhi or Mumbai.

Cinema Halls of India

India has a long association with cinema. The first Indian feature film was made in 1899. Today Bollywood is one of the largest film producers in the world, producing more than 1,000 films a year, with an audience of 3.6 billion people. In the 1980s with the advent of home video, cinema halls went through a period of lull in India. Many theatres closed down. The turn of the century saw a come back of cinema halls, this time with smaller halls and multiple screens catering to the ‘globalised’ consuming middle class.

In the Indian cities the old cinema halls are being converted into multiplexes which look the same whether in India or anywhere else in the world. The old cinema halls, some of which still exist, have a distinct character to them. These spaces tell of aesthetics which are local, often stating the owner’s taste. The employees of the old theatres have a personality of their own unlike the corporate executives at the multiplexes.

I found the old cinema hall spaces particularly evocative of time and changing culture. But their conversion into swanky multiplexes or commercial complexes is only a matter of time. As these spaces will leap into the digital world the trivia around will change. I am documenting these spaces before they become a thing of the past. This is an ongoing project.

This documentation was partly supported by the fellowship awarded by SARAI, Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. I am holding an exhibition of a series of 16 Cinema hall photographs in the FLATFILE Gallery, Chicago in 2008, January.