Karma Driver

During my 6 trips to India between 2013 and 2015, life in the streets of the megacities New Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Bangalore in particular exerted a great fascination on me. In all parts of society, I noticed the traces of westernisation and, on the other hand, I could feel how strongly people are still rooted in traditional Indian culture. The lively urban chaos full of crazy contradictions shows the permanent competition between the different value systems. Billboards, advertising campaigns, film posters, election posters and fashion images mix in the urban space with ubiquitous religious places of worship and historical symbolic images."

In the book Karma Driver, Wolfgang Zurborn combines two different photographic styles. He juxtaposes vertical fragmentary views of urban spaces and objects on the double pages in such a way that collage-like image constellations result. The enigmatic visual dialogue creates an aesthetic ambivalence between harmony and confrontation. The viewer is free to find his or her own interpretations for the clash of Eastern and Western values. Another level in the sequence of photographic images are horizontal street photographs that focus on the living conditions in the cities of contemporary India in a very direct and at the same time subtle way.

Wolfgang Zurborn, *1956 in Ludwigshafen/Rhine, Germany. Lives and works in Cologne