2009/09/01 by Kama Maclean · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Aesthetics #Ancient history #Anthropological Studies and Insights #Archaeology #Art #History #Law #Literature #Modernity #Negative #Pathos #Philippine History and Culture #Pilgrimage #Religious Tourism and Spaces #Tourism #Visual arts #White (mutation)
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1939-3881.2009.00082.x
openalex publication_date 2009/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
<p>The black and white photograph is of a group of peasant women,wrapped in coarse woolen shawls against the January cold. They look at the camera blankly—or is that with hostility at the camera’s intrusion? Deliberately drained of color, the image seems as though it could have been taken a century ago. One woman, the central figure, is wearing dark sunglasses, and has been no doubt chosen as a focal point because her middle-class accessory stands out as the image’s only sign-post to modernity. The photograph, ‘‘Kumbh Mela Women,’’ was taken at the Allahabad Kumbh Mela in 2001. It is copyrighted. It is ‘‘collect-able,’’ and apparently, a wise addition to an investment portfolio.2It is also an example of how images of the traditional (often synonymous with ‘‘the religious’’) have become desired, frame-able objects, fine art mementos to our own modular, more complete modernity. It was images such as this (and this is a comparatively benign example) that raised along-standing issue for managers of the Kumbh Mela in 2001: did photographers have a right to enter the mela grounds and take photographs as they pleased? How did the presence of international media crews affect the festival, and the ways in which people perform their rituals?</p>