Indian artist's solo comment on global consumerism at Venice

Containers discarded by miners in northeast India makes compelling photographic material for installation artist Samar Singh Jodha who is presently showing at the ongoing Venice Biennale, the so-called Olympics of art.
Jodha, who often mixes photography and film to focus on marginalised communities and issues, has in his solo show titled "Outpost" used blown up photographs of living spaces created out of containers by miners in the northeast, to comment on global culture.
The photographer-artist had in the past recreated the tragedy of one of the world's worst environmental and industrial disasters in Bhopal using sound and images in an installation that was displayed in London during the last Olympics.

From the oil rig workers in Nigeria, to Romanian and Polish workers in London from the soot pickers of Central America to the migrant workers from Kerala in the Gulf, Jodha has been over the past 20 odd years exploring stories people on "the fringes of society."
So is the work at Venice Biennale a continuation of the same? "Yes and no," says the 47-year-old artist.
"Yes for the fact that the habitat of migrant workers in India's north east was the starting point; the project evolved into themes about producing art in world that is getting culturally homogenised and art is increasingly framed by commercial interests," Samar Singh Jodha told PTI over email from the 55th Venice Biennale.

The Biennale in Venice, Italy, has been hosted once every two years for the past 106 years and displays contemporary art projects from all over the world. India had a national pavilion last time in the year 2011, in which, incidentally Jodha was part of a group project.

"It is a real joy because Venice is the oldest and most prestigious art fest and you get to see some of the world's best contemporary art here. Unfortunately India has had very little presence here," says the artist.
"The first and only India pavilion happened here only in 2011. To me it has also been exciting as I haven't exhibited a solo project here before and the response has been way beyond my expectations. I have been given a 500 square metre space which I am told is over thousand year old," says Jodha.

The avant-garde artist says his project is "a reaction to the present state of affairs and a gentle reminder of what is slipping away."
"Art is increasingly becoming the preserve of the so-called professional artist or virtuoso. At the same time it is increasingly being defined and framed by commercial interests. This was never the case earlier as can be seen, for example, in India's diversity or in her indigenous people where not just one or two individuals but the whole community is given to making art," says Jodha.