Chennai photographer Arun captures Tamil Nadu’s cultural identity through diptychs and triptychs

Shot on film, Chennai- based photographer Arun’s collection of diptychs and triptychs titled ‘Repressed Memories’ captures Tamil Nadu’s cultural identity

Arun’s very first borrowed Holga camera was often his only companion during long rides through screaming traffic on the East Coast Road. Sights typical of home, whizzed past him as he journeyed on his Enfield for hours at end: from paddy fields where women in rows, with petticoats tucked into their waists and bare legs sunk in mud, tend to the crop, to a forgotten 16th Century temple tank. This journey birthed Repressed Memories, a collection of vignettes that answers many questions that plagued Arun as a child, about his identity.

The self-taught photographer works extensively on film. Repressed Memories, created over a period of five years since 2016, is entirely shot on analogue cameras. And so, not only are the shots black-and-white, they are also imperfect. And that’s exactly what Arun loves about his practice: accidents.

“The project started from ECR, onto the inlands and to the mountains,” says Arun. Chennai, Puducherry, Tarangabadi, Karaikal, Rameshwaram, Thoothukudi, Madurai, Kovilpatti, Tiruchi, Thiruvannamalai, Yercaud, Gudalur, Udhagamandalam and Kotagari are some of the locations he covered. He shot people and animals in their environments: Their interaction with the landscape, and how they embrace loneliness amid chaos interested him. As a child growing up in the city, such scenes were alien to Arun which made him question how much he knew about his home.