Museo Camera, Centre for the Photographic Arts, will present an exhibition titled Touching Light: A Prelude to the Bicentennial of Photography (1827–2027), curated by Aditya Arya. The show opens on August 23 and runs until September 29 at Museo Camera, Gurugram.
The exhibition brings together rare archival works and contemporary analog practices, marking nearly two centuries since French inventor Nicéphore Niépce created the first photographic image in 1827. Archival highlights include a Carte de Visite from Bourne & Shepherd Studio (1860s), albumen prints from the People of India series (1850s–60s), and the Beauties of Lucknow series attributed to Darogah Abbas Ali (1874).
Alongside these, the exhibition showcases silver prints, chemigrams and diapositives by 28 Indian photographers and archives: Aditya Arya, Akash Das, Avinash Aggarwal, Avinash Pasricha, Bandeep Singh, Dinesh Khanna, Fawzan Hussain, Harbans Mody, Hardev Singh, Jayant Shaw, Kulwant Roy, Mahesh Bhatt, Mala Mukerjee, Neeraj Priyadarshi, the NK Dasappa Archive, Parthiv Shah, Prabir Purkayastha, Pradeep Chandra, Pradeep Dasgupta, Prashant Panjiar, Ram Rahman, Rohit Chawla, Saibal Das, Serena Chopra, Sondeep Shankar, Sumiko Nanda, the Thiagrajan Archive, and T. Narayan.
Analog photography, with its tactile processes and material fragility, remains central to the curatorial vision. “Touching Light is an ode to the pioneers and contemporary masters of photography whose vision and craft have shaped India’s visual history. This exhibition is both a celebration and a reminder of analog photography’s lasting beauty and significance as we approach 200 years of the medium,” said Arya, who is also the Founding Director of Museo Camera.
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The exhibition invites viewers to reflect on photography as both image and object—intimate, imperfect and profoundly human.
When: August 23–September 29; 11 AM – 7 PM
Where: Museo Camera, Centre for the Photographic Arts, Gurugram
