美国国家公共电台 NPR This Photographer Wants To Put A Museum In Your Pocket

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The Indian photographer Dayanita Singh received one of the top honors in her field last night, the International Center of Photography's Infinity¹ Award. It is for her latest work - a box that contains nine small books that expand into what she calls pocket museums. NPR's Bilal Qureshi went to meet the artist at her studio in New Delhi.

BILAL QURESHI, BYLINE²: The stairs leading up to Dayanita Singh's studio are lined with posters. They look like prints from one of her many museum exhibitions, but they're not. Singh has made them herself to make the point that being a photographer in the age of Instagram has nothing to do with institutional success.

DAYANITA SINGH: To be a photographer in my book would be you have to understand how to build a book. You have to understand editing and sequencing because I can find you 30 wonderful photographs on your Instagram feed. But you have to know how to cook, you know? You have to know how to build the symphony. You have to know how to find a form for photography.

QURESHI: Dayanita Singh's form is the physical book.

MARIO KRAMER: It's a whole exhibition in a pocket format³. So you can have a Dayanita exhibition with a very simple transport (laughter).

QURESHI: Mario Kramer is the curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt, Germany. He's been collecting Singh's work for years.

KRAMER: Dayanita was not interested anymore just the photo framed on the wall. She thought it's much more interesting to use the book page by page as a kind of storyline. And this intimacy⁴ in your two hands with a book is something totally different than standing⁵ in front of a wall.

QURESHI: The tactile⁶ experience of leafing through an old family album is the inspiration behind Dayanita Singh's latest book.

SINGH: The most magical experience of photography is when it's in your hands because it's here. You're touching⁷ it. You can hear it. You can smell it, you know? The first thing I do when I get a book is to actually smell it.

QURESHI: Her new book is called "Museum Bhavan." Each of the nine slim volumes expands from a few inches into a 7 1/2-foot-long gallery. Dreamy images of Indian family life and architecture, billowing curtains in the afternoon light, portraits of mothers and daughters, all in black and white. It's not the National Geographic⁸ view of India. And it's certainly not what Singh started out shooting 30 years ago as a photojournalist.

SINGH: Too often, and partly because of photojournalism, the photograph is too much about the point that it's trying to make. So the photograph, if it leaves you sort of not quite sure about what else is going on, then obviously it's going to linger with you. And that really is the magic of photography when it can go where there are no words.

(SOUNDBITE OF TABLA MUSIC)

QURESHI: For her first book, Dayanita Singh followed the tabla player Zakir Hussain. She says musicians taught her how to compose. And to this day she says her favorite part of bookmaking is setting hundreds of images out on a table and finding the music.

SINGH: It's about listening to the photograph. You have to find the pitch that you want to do the work with. I was doing that last night with a series of images. And I was saying, is this a (humming), or is it a (humming)? (Humming). And I set a certain pitch for it. And then I know this works and it doesn't work. I can almost do it with my eyes shut.

(SOUNDBITE OF TABLA MUSIC)

QURESHI: The writer Teju Cole says Dayanita Singh thinks like a novelist.

TEJU COLE: There's allusions⁹ between a picture you saw and then six pictures later another picture that has alluded¹⁰ to that one the way a novelist might drop something in the third chapter and then mention it again in the seventh.

QURESHI: That approach earned Dayanita Singh a lucrative¹¹ place on the global art market. But she says she wasn't satisfied selling individual prints.

SINGH: I felt you had plucked one note out of this symphony that I had produced. And that used to hurt me physically¹². How can you just take one sound out? I have made a whole symphony for you.

QURESHI: Her solution was the first "Museum Bhavan," a series of large wood cabinets that fold open and shut like Japanese screens.

SINGH: And I love, love it because professional curators, when they come here and I do all of this, they can't bear that I'm handling the artwork like this. But it's my work. I can turn it over and sleep on it if I like.

QURESHI: Each of these cabinet museums contain scores of images that tell a story, says writer Teju Cole.

COLE: It's a photograph of a bed. It's a photograph of a group of people. It's a photograph of a man standing on his head. It's a photograph of a grave. And yet because of her instinct for what picture should come after what picture, all of it just feels like it belongs.

QURESHI: And last year Dayanita Singh debuted¹³ the pocket edition.

SINGH: Hi. Hello.

QURESHI: At the Delhi opening, she unfolded her portable galleries out of a suitcase and onto shelves.

SINGH: So we made 3,000 unique boxes.

QURESHI: Since then she's been holding pop-up openings around the world where for less than a hundred dollars people can buy an exhibition.

SINGH: I'm inviting¹⁴ you - you - to be the curator of my work. And certainly when you have an exhibition of my work in your house it's a great privilege for me. It's a privilege to be in a museum, but it's also a privilege to be in a domestic space.

QURESHI: With these new books, Dayanita Singh says she wants to recreate the memory and the music of leafing through an old family album. That, too, is a museum. Bilal Qureshi, NPR News.

1 infinity   

n.无限，无穷，大量

参考例句：

• It is impossible to count up to infinity.不可能数到无穷大。
• Theoretically,a line can extend into infinity.从理论上来说直线可以无限地延伸。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 format   

n.设计，版式；[计算机]格式，DOS命令:格式化(磁盘)，用于空盘或使用过的磁盘建立新空盘来存储数据；v.使格式化，设计，安排

参考例句：

• Please format this floppy disc.请将这张软盘格式化。
• The format of the figure is very tasteful.该图表的格式很雅致。

4 intimacy   

n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行

参考例句：

• His claims to an intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated.他声称自己与总统关系密切，这有点言过其实。
• I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.我希望能有个关于亲密的规则。

5 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

6 tactile   

adj.触觉的，有触觉的，能触知的

参考例句：

• Norris is an expert in the tactile and the tangible.诺里斯创作最精到之处便是，他描绘的人物使人看得见摸得着。
• Tactile communication uses touch rather than sight or hearing.触觉交流，是用触摸感觉，而不是用看或听来感觉。

7 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

8 geographic   

adj.地理学的，地理的

参考例句：

• The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

9 allusions   

暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We should not use proverbs and allusions indiscriminately. 不要滥用成语典故。
• The background lent itself to allusions to European scenes. 眼前的情景容易使人联想到欧洲风光。

10 alluded   

提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• In your remarks you alluded to a certain sinister design. 在你的谈话中，你提到了某个阴谋。
• She also alluded to her rival's past marital troubles. 她还影射了对手过去的婚姻问题。

11 lucrative   

adj.赚钱的，可获利的

参考例句：

• He decided to turn his hobby into a lucrative sideline.他决定把自己的爱好变成赚钱的副业。
• It was not a lucrative profession.那是一个没有多少油水的职业。

12 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

13 debuted   

初次表演，初次登台（debut的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• In late 2003 a full-size SUV, the Pathfinder Armada, debuted. 2003年末，全尺寸SUV的探路者无敌舰队，推出。
• The album debuted at number two and quickly went platinum. 专辑一亮相就荣登排行榜第二名，很快就取得了白金销量。

14 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。