Join us at Arthshila Ahmedabad for a book talk on To Reach the Source: The Stepwells of India by Claudio Cambon.

DETAILS:
23 March 2025 | Sunday
Time: 6.00 pm onwards

Claudio Cambon spent almost five years photographing stepwells across India to document the variety of their forms and the ambiances they elicit. More than simply illustrate what the wells look like, Cambon sought to express what it feels like to enter and be in these unique subterranean structures. This focus on an experience of their aesthetics ultimately serves as a way to understand what the wells likely meant to their builders and original users, and what they can mean to us today. An empirically driven immersion is thus also an occasion to reflect on the relevance of stepwells in terms of India’s heritage and future, as functional, social, and ritual spaces, their past offering many lessons for our future sustainability. The result of this series is his new book, To Reach the Source: The Stepwells of India, published in February 2025 by ORO Editions (Novato, CA, USA).

Claudio Cambon has been a photographer for 35 years, since obtaining his undergraduate degree from Yale University.  He has photographed all over the world, especially in the Indian Subcontinent, where he first documented the last voyage, breaking and recycling of an American merchant ship in Chittagong, Bangladesh (published as the book Shipbreak by Edition Patrick Frey, Zurich, in September 2015), and then religious festivals across the eastern Subcontinent under the auspices of a Fulbright Fellowship. Claudio has taught, exhibited, lectured, and been published and collected internationally. He lives in Paris, France.

Venue: Arthshila Ahmedabad
2-G, opposite Ahmedabad Management Association,
Panjrapol, Ambawadi – 380015.