Aarati Akkapeddi: A-kin (Riso Print box set, signed)

A·kin is a project by Aarati Akkapeddi in collaboration with stars.archive and commissioned by The Photographers’ Gallery exploring human and non-human categorisation of photographic archives.

This set of risograph prints comprises six composite images, accompanied by artist reflections on each of them. It has been produced on the occasion of the exhibition of A·kin at The Photographers’ Gallery from October 2022 to February 2023. 

The work takes the artist’s family photo album as its starting point. Akkapeddi combines these personal photographs, from the south Indian state Tamil Nadu, with images from the Studies in Tamil Studio Archives and Society Archive (stars.archive), a collection that investigates the history of South Indian studio photography between the 1880s and the 1980s. The images on the work take the shape of a ‘kolam’ where patterns are traditionally drawn with rice flour by women on their home entrance to welcome all but the evil spirits. In this case, the kolam is formed by groupings of photographs organised by an image classification algorithm, and assembled into clusters by Akkapeddi’s own artistic intervention. Each group in the kolam is represented by a central image; a composite averaging all of the images within the cluster.

 

Title: A-kin
Publisher: The Photographers' Gallery/Earthbound Press, 2022
Artist: Aarati Akkapeddi
Format: Box containing 6 A3 Riso prints and information sheet
Size: 29.7 x 42 cm, 7 prints
Edition: 20, unnumbered, signed