KUSHAL RAY’S CALCUTTA ARCHIVE TO BE EXHIBITED AT EMAMI ART

Emami Art presents Calcutta 1990–1993, a solo exhibition of Kushal Ray’s photographs from 8 August to 18 September 2026. Drawn from thousands of negatives, the show captures the city’s everyday rhythms in the early 1990s, offering a rare, sustained study of urban life through people and their ordinary moments.

Emami Art will unveil Calcutta 1990–1993, a solo exhibition of photographs by Kushal Ray, opening on 8 August 2026 at Gallery 3 and running until 18 September. The exhibition, previewed on the opening evening, is drawn from thousands of negatives produced during Ray’s intensive engagement with the city in the early 1990s.  

This body of work represents one of the most sustained photographic studies of Calcutta from that period, offering audiences a rare opportunity to encounter the city as it was lived three decades ago. Ray’s archive is remarkable not only for its scale but also for its intimacy. Across every frame, people occupy the centre—commuting, waiting, working, resting, or gathering—each image steeped in the ordinary rhythms of urban life. His lens transforms the everyday into a narrative of resilience, continuity, and presence.  

Ray’s photographs are distinguished by their attentiveness to timing and structure. They capture the unpredictability of a city he knows intimately, balancing compositional rigour with the spontaneity of lived experience. This duality lends his work a distinctive rhythm, echoing the pulse of Calcutta itself. The images are not simply records of a place and time; they are meditations on the act of seeing, on the relationship between photographer and subject, and on the city as a living organism.  

The exhibition situates Calcutta in transition, yet anchored in its humanity. By focusing on the seemingly mundane, Ray elevates the ordinary into something enduring. His archive reveals a city negotiating change while remaining rooted in its everyday life. The photographs invite viewers to reflect on the passage of time, on how cities evolve, and on how memory is preserved through art.  

For Emami Art, the exhibition underscores its commitment to presenting works that engage with history and the lived realities of urban spaces. For audiences, it is an invitation to step into Calcutta’s past, to witness its rhythms through the eyes of one of its most attentive chroniclers. The preview on 8 August at 5:00 PM promises to be a significant moment for admirers of documentary photography and those interested in the cultural memory of the city.  

Ray’s Calcutta 1990–1993 is more than an exhibition; it is a testament to the power of photography to preserve, interpret, and reanimate the past. It offers a rare chance to encounter a city’s spirit through the gaze of an artist who has lived within it, observed it closely, and rendered its ordinary moments extraordinary.