Archana Kumar Photography

Project: THE END OF UNLOOKING

The End of Unlooking is a long-term portrait series that explores how girls and women in small-town and rural India navigate their visibility and presence in a society that is still shaped by patriarchal norms.

Even though I grew up in an upper-income Indian home, I had to fight to make my own decisions about my life choices. That experience has made me more attentive to how much harder it is for women from lower income and rural areas to make their life choices. I spent seven years photographing and speaking with women in Rajasthan and Kerala; What started as brief encounters on the street, deepened over time, and soon I was being invited into their homes and kitchens.

This body of work grew out a personal process of rediscovering my India, and especially the women whose lives I had once overlooked. Through this work, I invite viewer to look through a different lens,see beyond the colorful clothing, humble surroundings and easy assumptions. The photographs revealnwomen with a strong sense of self, confident in some moments, playful or guarded in others, and at times openly defiant, no longer unseen.