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Kolkata has always been a crown jewel in India’s heritage, culturally and artistically. Anyone familiar with Kolkata can tell you that the City of Joy is rich with wonders of art, history, music, dance and so much more that tends to fly under the radar,. For the past couple of years, a creative storm has been brewing in Kolkata and like young urban city-goers all over the world, Indians living in Kolkata have decided to venture on a quest to create artistic identities that are deeply rooted in their personalities, quirks, and dreams, giving life and modern flavours back to one of the oldest cities in the country.
An initiative fueling the creative fire within these young, fearless Calcuttans is Kolkata International Photo Festival (KIPF) that kicks off this February. Said to be Asia’s largest photo festival, KIPF 2019 will showcase works of iconic Indian photographers whose creations rarely find their way out of private collectors’ homes.
Madhuchhanda Sen, founder of the iconic Maya Art Space and Kounteya Sinha, world renowned photographer and founder of KIPF, are the acting directors for KIPF 2019. The festival was announced on December 11, 2018 at Kolkata’s iconic Victoria Memorial. KIPF is a five-day-long festival that will commence on February 28, 2019, and the collections will be showcased at various venues across the city.
“Kolkata is considered to be India’s Mecca art and culture. Maya Art Space, being one of the most revered art venues in the country has been showcasing the best of photographic works of not only artists in the city but some of the stalwarts of this sub-continent and the world. The thought of doing this festival has been on our mind for over a year and we wanted to deliver one of the best curated and managed festivals India has ever seen. The repertoire we are putting up will make KIPF 2019 a must attend festival for the world’s who’s who. This will the first time that such a festival will take place in Kolkata and it has already shaped up to become the largest in the country, both in terms of the content and the scale of participants,” said Sen.
Uma Nair’s s portrayal of Jyoti Bhatt’s work in a curated show called Living Walls, interactions about the up and coming trends and practices with one of the biggest names from the world of photography, a peek into India’s best known living photographer Raghu Rai’s 40 years of photographing Kolkata are just some of the great things KIPF 2019 has in store for India’s buing photographers.
“India has a very rich tradition of photography dating back to centuries. Erstwhile royal families hold a treasure trove of unknown and unseen works that have long languished in their vaults. However families such as these are now keen for the world to see those treasures. What you will see at the festival is both traditional rare photo works, many of the repertoires have never been shown in public space and the best of contemporary photography from the modern masters. The festival will stitch Kolkata together into a singular platform – homes, galleries and public spaces all becoming platforms showcasing incredible work spanning decades. Madhuchhanda and I want to give India a festival that is best of both the worlds – East and the West and that is exactly what KIPF will be,” said Sinha.
One of the most exciting aspect of KIPF 2019 is the opportunity to witness some of Bengal’s greatest names’ first attempts at creating magic from behind a still camera. These people are iconic creatives from across fields, ranging from cinema and art to literature and music. Actor and director Aparna Sen, filmmaker Goutam Ghosh, master painter Jogen Choudhury, writer Kunal Basu, renowned heart surgeon Ramakant Panda, and music director Shantanu Moitra will be seen participating in this interesting initiative.
Other things to look forward to are a viewing of rarely seen portfolio of India’s most awarded photographer S Paul, and an opportunity to witness never seen before photographs taken by the Oscar winning filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
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