Anu Kumar is a photographic artist living and working in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia).
Working primarily with medium format photography, Anu interrogates themes of displacement and the diaspora; using her practice as a gateway to understanding her identity as a woman born in India and raised in Australia. Through her work, Anu strives to archive the quotidian expressions of everyday life as an examination of self, family and belonging.
Her photography has been published in the New York Times and Vogue Italia and is soon to be Exhibited at the Center for Contemporary Photography along with an upcoming monograph with Perimeter Editions.
Images by Jessica Grilli
Where she draws inspiration from… Indian winter, draped fabrics, steel cups, the colour red, hand gestures and old Indian passport pictures.
Daily ritual…4pm chai and rusk
Rituals to rejuvenate... malish (head massage with coconut oil) from my mum, solo cinema trips, lying on the floor, deleting Instagram from my phone and big laughs with old friends.
“Ghar घर- meaning home in Hindi - is the culmination of over five years making images in my birthplace of Kavi Nagar, India.
I returned to Kavi Nagar when I was 21 years old.
I remember a feeling of discomfort; not knowing my place or who I was in that context. I began taking photos as an exercise in learning how to be Indian. It was a visual articulation of my curiosity, responding to my surroundings whilst hovering around my family as they would move through the day.
Over the course of this 5 year journey of taking photographs, Ghar mapped my growing comfort and paved the way for a deeper connection with my family. What began as a response to my curiosity, soon transformed into a thorough visual record in pursuit of preserving intergenerational gestures and familial rituals that often live within the in-between moments that may otherwise pass undocumented.”
~Anu Kumar
