Myself Mona Ahmed

Photographer and bookmaker Dayanita Singh (b. 1961) is one of India’s most celebrated living artists; her series Myself Mona Ahmed chronicles a decades-long relationship with her friend Mona Ahmed. Offering multiple intimate glimpses into Mona’s life at home and in the city of Delhi, this poignant work reflects the pair’s extraordinary closeness and mutual respect, conveying an artist’s deep compassion for her photographic subject.

In an eponymous 2001 publication, Singh relates that “Mona wanted to tell the story of being neither here nor there, neither male nor female […] I first assumed that a writer would have to tell her story, but after she dictated me some emails, I realized that I probably underestimated her and that she could tell her own story, weaving together fact and fiction.”

Padma Dorje Maitland, Malavalli Family Foundation Associate Curator of Art of the Indian Subcontinent, notes that although Myself Mona Ahmed may be made up of individual photos, Singh’s instructions for display maintained that the photos should be shown together, collectively.

“In the process of installation,” Maitland recalls, “I came to feel this was a meaningful and powerful position. We can’t understand each other through a single image. The spectrum of moments and emotions in this collection speaks to how our lives appear in different contexts and environments — how expressions of identity shift as we move between public, private, and other social spaces.”

Images: Myself Mona Ahmed, 2008. by Dayanita Singh (Indian, b. 1961). Twenty-one silver gelatin prints. Asian Art Museum, Museum purchase, Mortimer-Harvey Fund, 2017.46.a-.u. Photographs © Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.