The Water Photo Project: India

Across 2018-2019, seven photography fellows travelled to 10 states and 18 locations across India exploring and photo documenting visual narratives on the theme of water. Through these photos of people’s daily lives, the exhibit hopes to raise awareness of the global water crisis and demonstrate the importance affordable access to water and sanitation.

A fully funded fellowship, it encouraged amateur photographers from educational institutions to participate and document strong, innovative and diverse visual narratives. Our panel of accomplished documentary photographers – Samar Singh Jodha, Paroma Mukherjee and Prashanth Vishwanathan mentored the selected fellows during the fellowship period.

The exhibit was previously shown at the DLF Promenade Mall in Delhi. When exhibited in Delhi, the aim of the exhibition was to engage a wider audience in the global water crisis and use photography as a pathway to understand as well as start a conversation about the water crisis in the country and possible solutions.

Beyond demonstrating the scale of water crisis, the images were also meant to capture the various interventions that are being adopted by rural and urban communities across the country. By bringing the exhibit to Brussels, we hope to connect audiences to the various impacts of the global water crisis. And as the next European Commission’s mandate will be the one to answer on 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, we also hope that the exhibit shows how providing safe water and sanitation is a critical enabler in many areas - health, education, gender equality, and reduced inequalities.