Artist Profile

Sohrab Hura

sohrab hura_self portrait_berlinale

While the core of Sohrab Hura’s work lies in photographs, he tries to break that form regularly and extend it into film, text and sound. In 2010 he made Pati a ten-minute short film in which is an assemblage of photographs, collected sounds, film footage as well as text and his voiceover to give a glimpse of life in a village in Central India. Continuing his experiments with this half moving form he has made Pati (2010), The Lost Head & The Bird (2017), Bittersweet (2019) & The Coast (2020). Under his self-publishing imprint, UGLY DOG Sohrab Hura has published 5 books and in 2019 he won the Aperture – Paris Photo Photobook Of The Year Award for his book The Coast. His film The Lost Head And The Bird won the NRW Award as well as the special mention in the International Competition at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2018 and went on to win the Videonale Award at Kunstmuseum, Bonn in 2019. His film Bittersweet was awarded the Principal Award by the International Competition Jury of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2020. He lives and works in New Delhi.

Featured Work

The Coast

2020, 17mins, India

The physical coastline becomes a metaphor for a ruptured piece of skin barely holding together a volatile state of being ready to explode. 

Filmed in the dark of the night during religious festivities in a village in South India, the margin between land and water becomes a point of release beyond which characters experience fear, surprise, anger, sadness, trust, anticipation, excitement, contempt but also rapture as they wash off their masquerade.