Containment Diaries is a seven year self portrait series, chronicling my living with a neurological disorder.
This was the grandmother of my current work Women and Bodies. I became obsessed with bodies—how essential it is to the ‘self’ at this time and the obsession morphed into the current work.
Seeing oneself turn into a vegetable day by day was not just terrifying, it was excruciating. And being a former athlete, the thought of losing my body was unfathomable. It could not be.
I still say this today.
Without a body, there is no sense of self. You stop dressing, brushing your hair. You roam around like a ghost to your self.
All these images were taken in my childhood bedroom in Calcutta, where I would convalesce.
I started the series during Covid, and being that it was my private confinement, the name felt apt.
I was also reading a lot of Annie Ernaux at this time and started a written version of the series. Many of you will have read excerpts on here.
I put it in a shelf for a long time while working on the Bodies series the last year but on several people’s cajoling I’m back at it again.
However, I’ve been told not to put excerpts of the written version, a memoir, on this blog anymore if I want to get it published.
The publishing world continues to baffle and exasperate me.
But here are some of the old, very original images taken in Calcutta between 2019-2020
The very first self portrait I took. I did not even own a tripod back then.
Sorry readers, censorship reasons makes me keep the rest behind a paywall.
