PHOTOINK’s inaugural presentation at Photo London spans 75 years of Indian photography. The Gallery highlights the medium’s special ability to engage with the societal complexity of India. Ahmed Ali Archive’s monumental record of factory workers in Bengal sheds light on ordinary citizens at the forefront of the nation’s industrialisation. Dileep Prakash’s pensive portraits of Anglo-Indians gesture at the fraught history of intercultural belonging; they show both the comforts and melancholies of one’s inheritance. Ketaki Sheth’s album on Patel twins in the UK and India links the familial to the cultural; her photographs approach identity, made and remade by genetic and diasporic movement. In dialogue with these works, Rajesh Vora’s photographs of rooftop water tanks in Punjab reveal a curious yet playful history of migration. The series charts how the architectural landscapes of villages are reconstituted by emigrants’ dreams. Shifting focus from the documentary to a more conceptual mode, Madhuban Mitra & Manas Bhattacharya assemble a love letter to world cinema, juxtaposing rephotographed images from thousands of films from various countries, eras and formats.

Debuting at Photo London in its 25th year, PHOTOINK curates a selection of contemporary and historical photography from India. Centred on the revelatory power of portraiture, the presentation expands into a broader conversation about image-making in the country.