In 2022 I took part in a three-week artist residency at Woodstock School in Mussoorie, which brought together alumni visual artists from India and around the world. My own project was to extend the series of portraits I’d begun a few years earlier, but now focusing specifically on people in the Mussoorie area, whether locals or Indian tourists and vacationers. 

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As I wandered in search of portrait subjects, I began to mull a change in my plan (and my medium), the better to express the hard-to-describe effect of the sensory and especially sonic assault that a visit to the bazaar produces. So I borrowed a compact audio recorder from the school and took it into the bazaar, deliberately seeking out the most chaotic intersections—the very places that had given me a headache when I was there shooting pictures.

 

My work for the final group show of the residency was a hybrid of conventional prints mounted on metal panels and a 6-minute video of stills and soundtrack playing on a neighboring wall monitor. Some of those portraits also appear in the Himalayan Hill People gallery.

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That video, "In the Bazaar," presents the same set of portraits three times: the sections might be thought of as (1) the fun bazaar, (2) the realistic bazaar, and (3) the imaginary bazaar.

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To view the complete video, click the link in the screenshot below:

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