Your name
Akshay Mahajan
Place of birth
Poona, India
Place where you live now
A small village in Goa, India
3 words to describe you
Temporal, searching, entwined
Why do you take pictures?
Photography, for me, is a ritual—an act of remembering and forgetting. I take pictures to converse with time, to draw out the ghosts that inhabit the streets and structures we pass without thought. It’s a way of making sense of the incompleteness, of bearing witness to the fragments we inherit. I photograph to listen—to the whispers of places, to the gestures that reveal the weight of forgotten futures, and to capture the delicate intersections where myth meets the mundane.
Where do you get your inspiration?
I draw inspiration from the cracks—the spaces where history leaks into the present. It comes from the post-colonial cityscapes that wear their past like scars, from folklore that refuses to be forgotten, and from the landscapes that hold onto the voices of those who have lived and died seeking something more. Inspiration is also in the resilience of the people I meet—those who navigate the ruins of grandeur with grace, those who sing to elephants in forgotten languages, those whose lives are an ode to endurance.
Who are your influences?
Materials themselves influence me—they bring their own histories, origins, and associations. The terracotta of Asharikandi, for instance, speaks of hands that shape not just clay, but culture and memory. The physicality of the materials carries the weight of forgotten crafts, forgotten stories; they are infused with the resilience of communities that have survived colonial erasure. The archival images from the late colonial period reveal both the power and fragility of visual history. Much of the history of the Global South is unregistered, uncategorised—our art histories are unwritten and certainly not part of any canon. These archives are at once tools of preservation and erasure, and my work seeks to uncover these dualities, to question what has been excluded, and why. I am influenced by the craft of the everyday, by ordinary objects—the way a simple artefact carries the echoes of those who have touched it, their lives, their labour. These influences push me to look beyond grand narratives and instead focus on the seemingly mundane, which often holds the most profound layers of human experience.
What determines the subject matter you choose?
I am drawn to what is elusive—the barely visible echoes of history embedded in the everyday. The subject matter chooses me when it speaks of something more—of unfulfilled dreams, of structures whose stones hold secrets, of the spaces between people. My work gravitates towards untold stories, especially those tied to colonial legacies that still shape us, and the fragile beauty of resilience that defies neat narratives. It’s about documenting what remains when the lights of ambition flicker out, and what continues to grow in the forgotten corners.
What impact would you like your art to have?
I want my art to invite people into a dialogue with history—not as something distant or neatly sealed in the past, but as something that continues to shape our present, an echo that reverberates through our everyday lives. I hope my work encourages viewers to look beyond the surface, to see the untold stories embedded in landscapes, architecture, and ordinary people. I wish for it to provoke questions about belonging, resilience, and the narratives we inherit, and to serve as a means for healing—an opportunity to break the cycles we find ourselves repeating. By facing these histories, I hope we can better understand how to move forward, to find the threads of connection that allow us to mend and transform the places we live in, and ourselves.
What artwork do you never get bored with?
I find myself endlessly drawn to family photo albums—their pages worn, the photographs fading with time. They may not be what one traditionally calls "artwork," but they hold an allure that goes beyond mere nostalgia. Each image is a projection of how families wish to be remembered, a carefully constructed memory. The expressions, the clothes, the poses—all speak to aspirations, relationships, and moments of joy or longing. Revisiting them reveals the layers of what families chose to present to the world, and what remains just out of sight. Their imperfections, their gaps, and the sense of time passing give them a depth that I find endlessly compelling.
Is there anything you want to add?
Art and photography should be acts of solidarity, not exercises in nationalism. They have the potential to bridge divides and create dialogues across borders, allowing us to step out of our bubbles and connect with stories beyond our own. Too often, we live in isolation, unaware of the histories, struggles, and joys of those in other places—caught in the comfort of our limited view. True empathy requires us to open our minds to other histories, to see the interconnectedness of our worlds, and to celebrate our shared humanity. Art should be an invitation to explore, to reach across divides, and to recognise that we are all part of a larger, interconnected story.
