GAURI GILL

Balika Mela II (2010)

In 2003 a non-profit organization organised a Balika Mela -or fair for girls, in Rajasthan, attended by almost fifteen hundred adolescent girls. The mela had various stalls, food, performances, a Ferris wheel, magicians, puppet shows, games and competitions, similar to any other small town fair.

“I created a photo-stall (…) with a few basic props and backdrops, whatever we could get from the local town studio and cloth shop on a very limited budget (…). The light was the broad even light of a desert sky, filtered through the cloth roof of our tent. Girls came in, and decided how and with whom they would like to be photographed”.

In 2010, Gill returned to attend a Balika Mela after a gap of seven years, with an exhibition in a tent. Many of the girls portrayed in the pictures from 2003 were either at the fair or known to those who attended. She ended up making more portraits, this time in color.