Concrete Playground

Exploring the delicate nature of contact between cultures, The Indian Empire, Multiple Realities draws together various representations of India and foreigners in India. In bringing together both local and outsider visuals and perceptions, the exhibition tells a complex, interwoven and often conflicting narrative about Indian culture and history.

There is also a technical side to this collection, in that the invention of new printing techniques temporally coincided with the widespread British presence from the mid 1800s. As such, the exhibition is truly a multidimensional exploration of image and representation.

This exhibition has a particularly poetic post-colonial resonance in an Australian context. That said, it also contains the potential to push us beyond familiar traps and assumptions in its consideration of a culture so complex and distant from the experience of many.

Image: Unknown subject, India, c1880s. Silver gelatin photograph. Portvale Collection