2013 Articles

Out of Sight: Archiving Hidden Histories of Practice

Mukherjee, Debashree

Our understanding of Indian cinema would remain incomplete until we acknowledged its supporting cast of hairdressers, poster painters, costume designers, still photographers, makeup artists, and numerous other specialists invisible to the public eye. In January 2013, Debashree Mukherjee curated an exhibition of Hindi film memorabilia titled “Maya Mahal”, which featured artefacts from the private collection of Priya Paul. In this essay, Mukherjee uses examples from the collection to point to hidden histories of work and practice, and to give us a fragmented view of low-budget films, lost genres and the wage-workers who mark each film with their individual skills.