A few days ago, I organized a photography exhibition under the name of “A rainbow of sweet contradictions”. On it, I decided to share the stories of several people within my in-country community to try to explain certain aspects of how tradition and innovation are shaping India’s culture and society.
These “contradictions” helped me navigate pass the audience’s initial misconceptions and stereotypes about India while bringing the audience and my own realities together through empathy and cross-cultural understanding.
This was a great way to reconnect and reflect on my own experiences. After all, my life in country was a collection of many overlapping stories, that made me not only gain a greater understanding on the everyday life, but also put a face to the statistics, the exotic names and the global context.
Through this visual story sharing, I have put a small part of my year into perspective. This capstone has helped me bring clarity in my deep feeling of transition. This past year has been full with so much life and so many experiences, that it has been hard to think about the bigger picture behind all the small stories and anecdotes.
This photography exhibition has brought me back to appreciate the elusive unstoppable pace of time. I feel like my Capstone project has helped me create more consistent, clearer memories.
My intention with this exhibition was modestly trying to answer the eternal question of “How was India?”. I hope that my audience will find the answer they need in these seven stories that challenged my views of India over the last year.
This was one of the seven photos of the series, it represented the color red.
Namaste.
