About Abul Kalam Azad in prumpakkam road, Tiruvannamalai

Abul Kalam Azad was born in Kerala and brought up in the historical dockland Mattancherry which features extensively in his works. Abul’s association with theatre, music, art and politics in the post-emergency period moulded a radical thinking, which coupled with a passion for photography that he shared with his father Haneef Rahman made him choose an “unconventional” career in photography.

Abul initially became involved in the technicalities of photography and printmaking by working as an apprentice in a studio during his schooling. During the late 1980s, he set up ‘Studio Zen’ and began to work with prominent news agencies and periodicals in India and abroad. In the meantime, he continued his own personal explorations and documentations of experiences and memories of his native land.

In 1990, he moved to New Delhi to work for the Press Trust of India. Amidst the national political turmoil, involvement with SAHMAT and exposure to intellectual activity centred in Delhi, Abul’s concept of photography shifted from journalism to a medium of self-expression. In 1995, he travelled to France for higher studies in photography through a French government scholarship. He is also the recipient of the Charles Wallace Fellowship (1995) and senior fellowship from the Government of India (2013-2015). In 1996, he quit his photo-journalism career to pursue an independent art practice.

Abul’s first exhibition was in Kalapeedom, Kochi and since then has displayed his works in India and abroad, including London, New York, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Switzerland and Montpellier. Abul moved back to Mattancherry in 1998, continuing his practice and promotion of independent photo-art. His maverick approach to the medium, verging on the barbaric, now comprised methods such as stitching, scratching, doodling, sequencing, multiple exposures and digital painting. Many of his works deal with issues of identity, ethics, micro/macro history and eroticism.

In Mattancherry, Abul continued his attempts to reach regional audiences that he had earlier attempted through ‘Studio Zen’, through ‘Mayalokam Collective’. Encounter, a fortnight long art festival was organised by the Collective in collaboration with other local artists and art organisations. Mayalokam Art Collective was officially dissolved in 2005, but Abul’s Mayalokam studio continued to operate in the same building in the busy Bazaar road of Mattancherry till 2010. He is the Founder Chairman of Ekalokam Trust for Photography and Director of Public Photo-art Project 365. He is also serving as the Editor-in-Chief of Photo Mail, an online magazine for photo-art.

Abul's pioneering works bring about a break to the norms of classical photography and create images, which blends the technical perfection of the photography, with the composition of paintings and images that surpasses reality, dream ...and the abstract.