Five years ago, Vasantha Yogananthan set himself an ambitious challenge: undertake a contemporary reading of the Râmâyana, one of the most fundamental texts of the Hindu mythology, written more than two thousand years ago. For this French photographer of Tamil origins, a long journey began: A Myth of Two Souls, intended to be a seven volumes publication released by Chose Commune, a publishing house of which he is the co-founder. A book for each chapter, recounting the saga of prince Râma, who embarks on an epic journey from Northern to Southern India, in order to save his wife Sita from the clutches of the demon Ravana. The photographer chose to walk in the footsteps of this mythical hero and try to grasp the outlines of contemporary India, between dream and reality.
He presented at the Studio Fotokino a series of photographs from the two first chapters, Early Times and The Promise, dedicated to Râma’s childhood and marriage with Sita. Blurring trails and offering different levels of interpretations, he mingles snapshots and staged pictures, inviting the passers-by to reenact certain key-scenes of the tale, giving body and life to this collective imagination.
At once a documentary narrative and a lyrical ballad, A Myth of Two Souls plunges us into a dreamlike and timeless India.
