In Nantes, Charles Fréger explores the incarnations of Hindu deities through masquerade

News from the cultural sector in the regions and internationally thanks to our correspondents abroad and to those who create cultural life where they are.

Tonight with the photographer Charles Freger who, after Wilder Mann in 2017 and Cimarron in 2019, returns for a third exhibition at the

Castle of the Dukes of Brittany, with a new photographic series. Titled ”

AAM AASHTA “, which can be translated as “common devotions”, this exhibition is part of the expanded artistic program of the first edition of the ”

travel in winter ” In Nantes.

Many of Charles Fréger’s photographic projects focus on masquerades around the world. India figures prominently in his work, as evidenced by his previous projects”Sikh Regiment of India” (2010), “Painted Elephants” (2013) and “School Chalo(2016). It is therefore only natural that the artist has continued his exploration of India since 2019, this time to show the different incarnations of Hindu deities, often from the Ramayana, the founding epic of Hinduism. To show the diversity of figurations, Charles Fréger left the south of the country (Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) before crisscrossing India.The result is 90 unpublished photographs that the exhibition “AAM ASHTA” invites us to discover, in preview.

In this series, where the place of religion is central, the women and men that Charles Fréger photographed change status and become deities for a time. Very aesthetically constructed, these images of sacred dances and theatrical games – Theyam, Katakali, Mudiyetu, Terukutu, also reveal the strict social organization that governs the masquerades.

Excerpt from the introduction to the exhibition:

“With the photographic series “AAM AASTHA”, Charles Fréger offers us the opportunity for a masterful incursion into India, a gigantic space of an infinite variety of landscapes, cultures, religions and beliefs reflected in the diversity of a billion inhabitants. If the previous series produced by the artist in Europe, Japan and the American continent had given us to see the traces of material and immaterial cultures concentrated during particular festivities, those of masquerades and carnivals, ” AAM AASTHA”, by allowing us to discover the intrinsic and permanent relationship of the Indians to religion and spirituality, particularly within the Hindu and Buddhist communities, upsets our bearings. Lost before the beliefs, devotions and founding stories illustrated by those and those who, by donning a costume, have not only changed in appearance but in status and have become the real and temporal incarnations of the deities whose they bear the traits and attributes, we try to recognize, here Vishnu, there Krishna or Ganesh. But immediately, we become aware of what escapes us. The relationship of the Indians to the different worlds, whether real, infra or supra, their conception of life, the afterlife and the original Cosmos, their perception of the Other, whether human, animal, vegetal or mixed, their interest in gender, whether feminine, masculine or multiple; everything here thwarts our beliefs.”

• The photographic exhibition “AAM AASTHA“ by Charles Fréger can be discovered at

  Castle of the Dukes of Brittany. Initially scheduled until November 27, it is extended until December 31, 2022. It is held within the framework of the first edition of the “

  travel in winter ” In Nantes.
  

• To discover Charles Freger’s websiteclick

  here.