Siddhartha Tawadey

 

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” says Siddhartha Tawadey, piercing gaze and all, before letting out a laugh. Of course he's joking – don’t expect there’s a chance he’s going to reveal the locations featured in his new series of photographs, entitled Sans Souci.

Literally translated from French as “without worries”, its name comes from Tawadey’s visit to the Sans-Souci palace in Potsdam, Germany, built by King Henry I of Haiti in 1813. The UNESCO World Heritage Site lends not only its name to Tawadey’s series, but also the spirit of the photographs that it is comprised of.

“I wanted to create a similar palace, metaphorically. What you’ll see here are little moments in time, so it’s not so much the physicality of the subject but more the feeling behind what I wanted my ‘palace’ to constitute of,” explains the Calcutta-born photographer, whose solo exhibition is presented at Art Plural Gallery, marking the launch of its Emerging Artists Programme. The initiative showcases one promising artist each year, selected based on criteria such as distinct artistic identity, unique visual language, and thematic relevance to contemporary culture.

Having studied art and photography at St Martins School of Design and at City University in London, Tawadey has gone on to have solo exhibitions in India and New York, and last year, he completed a residency at the School of Visual Art in New York City. He admires the work of Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte and American photographers William Eggleston and Steven Shore, often viewing his own work as imagined conversations with these artists.

Entrance (Sans Souci)
 
 

On how his artistic style has evolved, Tawadey says, “Now, I look for the tatler_tatler_stories and the context, whereas earlier on I looked for aesthetics. I try to tell the tatler_tatler_stories of the objects that you see, and I work more on instinct.”

The photographs in Sans Souci possess a somewhat haunting mystique, emanating from the physically neglected nature of the subjects and the intangible emotions imbued in the atmospheric images.

“People were asking me where this [photo of a street lamp] was. Someone said, ‘I know, it’s Berlin’. Another said, ‘No, I know it’s Provence’. Finally, one guy said, ‘That’s a small town I grew up in – I know the guy who lives there!’” he recounts with a laugh. “I didn’t want to disclose where this is because people tend to project themselves onto the space, and that makes it interesting because they take ownership and inscribe their own hitatler_tatler_stories onto that place. I want people to engage in the art in their own way, as opposed to me forcing my art onto them.”

It explains why there are no human elements in Sans Souci, merely objects and places that have been weathered by nature and time, embodying the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi that Tawadey is inspired by. The principle of Zen aesthetic centres on beauty in transience and imperfection, and comes through especially in the portion of the series shot in Singapore, depicting gritty abandoned spaces and decaying objects.

Untitled 1 (Decadence of the Abandoned)

 

Tawadey shoots both digital and film, and professes no allegiance to one format over the other. “Digital came about because film had its problems, so I’m sure there’ll be a newer technology that will replace the problems with digital. It’s just an evolution of imagery. I don’t have any nostalgia with film; just anything that captures what I want to capture.”

And what does he think of the idea that getting a great shot is all about luck?

“Yes, I think luck plays a big role. But more than luck, it helps to be prepared. Today in the digital age where we just snap, snap, snap, it’s good to wait for moments. I usually take one photograph instead of multiple shots. I’ll hang around the space and suddenly I’ll know I’ve got it.”

 

Sans Souci is on until September 7, 2012, at Art Plural Gallery, 38 Armenian Street