Since 2008 Fine Art photographer Karen Knorr‘s work has taken a new turn and focused its gaze on the upper caste culture of the Rajput in India and its relationship to the “other” through the use of photography, video and performance. The photographic series considers men’s space (mardana) and women’s space (zanana) in Mughal and Rajput palace architecture, havelis and mausoleums through large format digital photography.
In “India Song”, her most recent work, Knorr’s photographs engage two formal constants – first the insertion by digital means of the animal subject(s) within the consistently frontal interior photograph and secondly the pose or action expressed. Each finished photograph is both a mystery and a fable – referencing both the vast tradition of picturing animals in art along with the western appreciation/appropriation of eastern culture and form.
Karen Knorr celebrates the rich visual culture, the foundation myths and stories of northern India, focusing on Rajasthan and using sacred and secular sites to consider caste, femininity and its relationship to the animal world. Interiors are painstakingly photographed with a large format Sinar P3 analogue camera and scanned to very high resolution.
Live animals are inserted into the architectural sites, fusing high resolution digital with analogue photography. Animals photographed in sanctuaries, zoos and cities inhabit palaces, mausoleums , temples and holy sites, interrogating Indian cultural heritage and rigid hierarchies. Cranes, zebus, langurs, tigers and elephants mutate from princely pets to avatars of past feminine historic characters, blurring boundaries between reality and illusion and reinventing the Panchatantra for the 21st century.
Text & image courtesy of Karen Knorr
See more at www.karenknorr.com
