Between Flesh and Clay
sharon tribelsky | Kolkata India, India
Photographer: sharon tribelsky
Exhibit Title: Between Flesh and Clay
Location: Kolkata India, India
This photographic series was created in Kumartuli, Kolkata, a historic neighborhood renowned for its generations-old community of idol makers. Over the course of several days, from early morning until evening, I moved through its narrow lanes and workshops, immersing myself in the daily rhythm of the place while photographing the project. The artisans of Kumartuli prepare clay idols for Puja festivals, most notably Durga Puja, shaping figures that will soon become the spiritual focus of vast public celebrations.
In Kumartuli, artisans live and work alongside the figures they create unfinished deities sharing space with passersby, tools, dust, and noise. The images explore the fragile boundary between the human body and the bodies we create, where distinctions between maker and creation, ritual and routine, sacred and mundane begin to blur. Shot at close range and from within the flow of everyday life, the photographs capture moments where touch, gesture, and proximity dissolve hierarchy between flesh and sculpture.
Rather than documenting the festival itself, the series focuses on the in-between state, where devotion is built through sustained labor, repetition, and human presence long before divinity is complete.
https://sharon-tribelsky.myportfolio.com/landscapes
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