Nipun Prabhakar

India

Nipun Prabhakar is an independent architecture photographer, designer and community architect. He lives a mobile life but is broadly based in Delhi, Bhopal, and Kutch. He works at intersections of ideas, artifacts, folklore, and the built environment. 

In his photographic practice he explores the poetics and politics of the quotidian. His background as an architect has deeply impacted his sense of understanding space in situations that call for a contextual response to culture and geography. This duality provides him an opportunity to both observe and participate in different cultures, allowing him to learn more about humankind, and himself.

Since 2015, he has been working on a long term photo project 'what happens when architects leave’, an enquiry of how buildings transform over time. It started after he started documenting the construction of a post-riot settlement in Muzaffarnager (1) designed by Hunnarshala Foundation (where he was also interning as an architect). He went back multiple times over the years to document how the settlement transformed. To work further on the same idea, he photographed late architect Charles Correa's buildings across the country to see how his work has been transformed over years. 

He has completed his bachelors of Architecture from School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal and has since then worked with various grassroots development organisations, publications, universities and museums in collaborating-with, photographing, documenting and training indigenous communities in South Asia. He is a recipient of the Berkeley Essay Prize 2014 by the University of California, Berkeley, and was Cornell University’s South Asian Fellow 2019-20 for his documentary photography work on the Doors of Kathmandu.

Source:

Prabhakar, Nipun. n.d. “About Nipun Prabhakar.” PhotoShelter. Accessed February 16, 2022. https://www.nipunprabhakar.com/about. Archived at https://perma.cc/S94U-Y856.

Notes:

1) On 7 September 2013, riots broke out between the Muslim and the Hindu Jat communities of the area. Approximately 50 people were killed, and thousands more forced to flee. In addition, homes, businesses, and property were looted, damaged, or destroyed. (BBC News. 2013. “Muzaffarnagar: Tales Of Death And Despair In India’s Riot-Hit Town.” September 25, 2013. Consulted 16 May 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-24172537. Archived at