Will My Mannequin Be Home When I Return by Arko Datto
In fond remembrance of the night that was
In anticipation of the dark that awaits.
After the travails of the day, nighttime is when life finds expression at its deepest, truest and most intense.
Covering a span of four years, MANNEQUIN presents a portrait of the Indian night and is the first installment of an existential trilogy on night time, night life and night space — three essential elements that exist both in grudging harmony and brutal confrontation.
MANNEQUIN began in the early days of 2014, barely a few months before Hindu extremists took over the country. Looking back into this work today, I find premonitory signs of things to come, the writing splayed out across the fraught landscapes of the night: broken trucks, burning houses, shrouded children, violent births, dead cows, masked men, mad men, men without arms, furtive intimacies, crumbling mannequins of erstwhile gods: glimpses into the symbols that would soon become emblematic of India today.
An India where right-wing Hindu sentiments are confused with nationalism, where cow vigilantes lynch Muslims and Dalits suspected of eating beef or smuggling cows, where anti-Romeo squads assault inter-faith and inter-caste couples, where mothers beg sons to leave their taqiyahs at home and where Facebook and Whatsapp are used to spread hatred, hysteria and paranoia. India today is at war with itself, a country determined to exterminate its minorities, its vulnerable and its disenfranchised.
Intolerance, terror and the clash of civilizations resonate universally across cultures and continents as the forces that are shaping the world of today. Technology’s promise of a united world of understanding and interconnectedness falls apart while we fail to hear one another’s pleas in the ever-widening gyre.
The sun set before we knew it. Fascism is not nigh. It is now. And the night is long.
Arko Datto : My aim with photography is to question what it means to be a photographer in the digital age while simultaneously playing the role of observer and commentator on critical issues. I pursue narratives on seemingly disparate topics- forced migration, techno- fascism, surveillance in the digital panopticon, disappearing islands, nocturnal realms and psychosomatic stress of captive animals to name a few. Although every narrative I explore is separate and different from the next, together they form threads of inquiry into the existential dilemmas of our times.
By incorporating and developing diverse visual languages, narratives and styles, I want to push the boundaries of both still and moving images. I was on my way to a doctorate in theoretical sciences before I decided to change course. Apart from working on my own visual projects, I also enjoy curating the works of others and have been associated with Kochi Biennale, Obscura Photography Festival and Chennai Photo Biennale in this regard.
Instagram: arkodatto
