Sergio Valenzuela-Escobedo's MÄNK'ÁČEN at NCPA Mumbai Deconstructs Camera's Colonial Genealogy

Key facts

• Exhibition MÄNK'ÁČEN (Revision 60) by Sergio Valenzuela-Escobedo is on view at Dilip Piramal Art Gallery NCPA, Mumbai until 20 September.
• The project originates from the phrase 'Toumayacha Alakana' encountered at Yagan Usi Museum in southern Chile.
• Research focuses on the French Scientific Mission to Cape Horn (1882-1883) which photographed the transit of Venus.
• Valenzuela-Escobedo draws on Vilém Flusser's concept of the camera as a 'black box' and develops 'mystical mechanics'.
• He collaborated with the Lafkenche Mapuche community in Puerto Saavedra, Chile in 2017, deliberately not bringing a camera.
• The exhibition addresses the preservation of photographic archives on digital platforms and state-driven historical erasure.
• He cites the Nimrud lens (8th century BCE) and Hercule Florence's experiments in Brazil (1833) to challenge Eurocentric history.
• The project uses diagrams as a non-linear narrative framework and emphasizes collaboration.
• He references Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, and Roland Barthes on photography's perceived threats.
• The artist positions himself alongside Indigenous communities, focusing on the photographic act itself.