Kerala unfolds here through cloud-laden skies, ritual performances and landscapes shaped by water and memory. Curated by art historian and critic Uma Nair, with assistance from renowned nature and conservation photographer Balan Madhavan, the ongoing group photography exhibition ‘Lenscape Kerala’ is currently on view at Travancore Palace.
The travelling exhibition, inaugurated in Delhi on January 20, will remain on view till January 23, before travelling to 10 other Indian cities including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, concluding in Surat on March 31. The show includes over 100 photographs by 10 travel lensmen and media photographers from across India, each of whom travelled across Kerala for over five days, responding to the state’s heritage, people, backwaters and wildlife through their distinct visual languages.
It features works by Aishwarya Sridhar, Amit Pasricha, H. Satish, Kounteya Sinha, Manoj Arora, Natasha Kartar Hemrajani, Saibal Das, Saurabh Anand Chatterjee, Shivang Mehta and Umesh Gogna. Together, their photographs trace Kerala through its rural and ritualistic life, as well as its architectural and historical charm.
The show opens with the works of Aishwarya Sridhar, through whose photographs wildlife and aerial perspectives emerge. Sridhar, the first Indian woman to win the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, presents images from Wayanad marked by depth, scale and an almost painterly softness. Shot from aerial vantage points, her photographs capture the region’s greenery, hills and lakes. “Her way of seeing is very soft, very feminine,” Nair says. “And that is why I began the exhibition with her.”
One of the most striking bodies of work comes from Kounteya Sinha, a former journalist who turned to photography after his life took a different turn. Sinha documents living traditions — dancers, ritual performers, villagers — and everyday moments that resist easy explanation. His photographs of Theyyam dancers are particularly arresting: richly coloured portraits that emphasise composition, juxtaposed with black-and-white images where expression and inner transformation take centre stage. In one image, a man standing in a field while grazing his cow — overcome by the intensity of a Theyyam dancer — folds his hands. “Where do you see moments like this today?” Nair asks. “There are things that happen in Kerala that cannot be explained.”
Architectural symbolism and landscape take centre stage through Manoj Arora’s work. He photographs Garuda stambhas, Aranmula kannadi —mirrors made from an alloy of copper and tin believed to bring fortune — and scenes of metal being fired. In several images, clouds, light and texture are as important as the subject itself. “What is a landscape in Kerala without clouds?” Nair notes. His work, particularly a luminous image of molten metal, hints at his evolution as a compelling nature photographer.
The show also features Amit Pasricha’s photographs from Alappuzha, which depict domestic interiors, riverbank homes and everyday worship, capturing the subtle shifts of a region shaped by water and time. Saibal Das’s images from a friend’s home render time in its physicality — cabinet, cat and photographs — speaking to the coexistence of past and present.
Other contributors include Saurabh Anand Chatterjee, whose work from Kochi and Alappuzha leans into dramatic skies and sunsets; Natasha Kartar Hemrajani, who presents digitally transposed images of dancers and flowers; and H. Satish, whose practice brings a restrained approach to landscapes and built spaces. Wildlife also takes centre stage through images by Shivang Mehta and Umesh Gogna — both known for their wildlife photography — who surprise with images of spiders, hornbills in conversation with macaques, boulders framed by waterfalls, and saturated landscapes from the Western Ghats.
For Nair, photographs are about its stories. “I believe that photography is an art. Everything is about katha. If you have a hundred photographs, you must have a hundred kathas,” she notes. “I am looking at new stories. I’m not looking at what is predictable.”