Amma by Vasantha Yogananthan. Published by Chose Commune.
I vividly remember first seeing the work of Vasantha Yogananthan in a 2017 exhibition at Foam in Amsterdam. Since then, I have consistently been impressed by how beautifully he translates the powerful presence of the physical work into book form. Amma represents the culmination of his ambitious, long-term project A Myth of Two Souls (2016–21), his modern-day interpretation of the epic Indian myth The Ramayana which he explores through seven volumes (the earliest of which are now long sold out). That said, Amma resonates eloquently as a standalone book, independent from the project’s preceding six volumes, a testament to the richness of his pictures and his compelling sequencing of them. Yogananthan's distinctive practice of combining straight photographs with those that have been hand-painted or hand-tinted, creates an ethereal, engrossing world heightened by the wonderfully tactile materiality of the book itself, with each photograph individually tipped on to the book’s textured pages. Now that this project has reached its conclusion, I will eagerly await what he does next.
Allie Haeusslein is the Associate Director of Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco, one of the largest spaces in the world dedicated to photography. Haeusslein is involved in all facets of the organization’s operations including exhibitions, publications, and public programs. She conceived and edited the publication Photographers Looking at Photographs: 75 Pictures from the Pilara Foundation, published in late 2019. Her exhibition Looking Forward: Ten Years of Pier 24 Photography is tentatively scheduled for early 2022.
www.alliehaeusslein.com
www.pier24.org
@haus_of_allie