About Practice – Kadambari Koli

I as an individual was naturally curious about knowing about stories from my grandparents about them and their times and this could be well catered through the immediate source of photographs in our collection.

I further aimed to collect photographs from my Koli community who happened to be related but hesitant to share what they behold, but instead started the act of storytelling of past times and I could acquire more knowledge of the narratives that revolved around my own culture and the cultural practices. This helped me acquire a huge deposit of memories which I felt if not revisited would be lost in time.

Eventually some of them finally started sharing object and photographs, these photographs did not only reveal stories about the subjects who individually had their own stories and their relationship with the other subject and time around them. But here I encountered different stories of the Son Koli tribe in each picture, which spoke about the times, tradition, it’s beliefs and practices, the costume, ethnic jewelry, customs and the landscape around the existence of my Koli community captured in time.

These photographs reveled my personal history and also helped me understand my ancestorial traditions which eventually would help build profound bridges of communication and help other people share the stories of cultures living on the edge that lie deep in the ocean of mere existence.

I believe this dialogue between the image and the people viewing it will definitely change according to changing times as the past will truly come to life and each individual’s way of seeing will invade as they look at things with a bit more consciousness and with a different perspective reveling all the hidden stories within ever frame.
I wish to invade all of them.

Kadambari Koli

(Artist & Pedagogist)

Kadambari Koli (b 1983), is Mumbai based artist and pedagogue with MVA in creative drawing & painting from SNDT Women’s University Churchgate, Mumbai (2016) and B.F.A in Creative Drawing & Painting from Sir J.J School of Fine Art, Mumbai (2007).

Some of her public art projects comprise, she is Co-Founder of Tandel Fund Of Archives a Pop-up Museum of Fisher folks of Mumbai, India, a ongoing longterm endeavour since 2019. ‘Confluence’- Mumbai Water Naratives curated by Sara Ahmed (2021); ‘Let There Be Bounty Everyday, Surving SQ: A Sunaparata Initiative’(2020); Tandel Fund of Archives, Cycle-1 Chendani Fishing village & Cycle-2 Vitawa Fishing village pop-up museum of fisherfolk, Mumbai (2020 & 2019); ‘(En)counters- Daily Rations’ Public art project, curated by Artoxygen (2017); Geographies of consumptions’, Mumbai (2015); (En)counters- Fluid City, Big Catch, Mumbai, India (2010).

Kadambari currently lives and works in Thane, Mumbai.