Aman Alam's 'Ozymandias' at Les Rencontres d'Arles Explores Alzheimer's and Perception

Photographer Aman Alam presents 'Ozymandias' at Les Rencontres d'Arles, on view until October 4. The project began as a personal coping mechanism while caring for his grandmother Naseem, a former history professor and college principal in Agra, India, who lived with Alzheimer's disease. As her condition progressed, Alam's photography evolved into an exploration of perception, illness, and love. His images capture animals looming from darkness, uncanny domestic scenes, and medical scans, often using flash to disrupt conventional visual language. Alam combined his own photographs with family archives, including studio portraits of Naseem and her daughter, which he hand-colored with Naseem's input. He also incorporated brain scans showing Alzheimer's physical effects. The work's title references Shelley's sonnet about impermanence. Alam embraced his grandmother's fabulations rather than correcting them, which he credits with improving her engagement. He fed audio recordings, photographs, medical records, and other data into an AI language model, encouraging hallucination to generate fictional narratives. The resulting dummy book uses three languages and scripts, resembling a folder of evidence with x-ray-like pages. Alam hopes the work fosters connection and validation for viewers.