A·kin: Aarati Akkapeddi

Strange exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery using computers to combine and analyse photographic portraits from South India.

The show combined images from the artist Aarti Akkapeddi’s family album and from a South Indian archive. Akkapeddi had dropped similar images then merged then into one.

These were displayed in the pattern of a kolam, a pattern drawn in rice flour to welcome people to the home. The amalgamated image was shown in the middle of the group which formed it.

I liked the effect and the idea but I wasn’t sure what the aim and conclusion of it was. The commentary said it looked at issues of seeing photos as data points. I wasn’t sure if the combined images were to be seen as giving those around it a stronger identity or diminishing them.

Closes 19 February 2023

 

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