My Friend Jinson's Kollavarsham 1202: A Journey Through Time, Memory and Resistance

Kollavarsham 1202: A Journey Through Time, Memory and Resistance

There are some people you meet in life who seem to inhabit a world slightly different from the rest of us. Jinson Abraham is one such person. I have known Jinson for nearly 17 years, and through all these years I have watched him remain what he has always been at heart: a deeply creative soul, endlessly curious, restless with ideas, and possessed of that rare ability to see things that most of us simply pass by.

His ongoing exhibition at Durbar Hall Art Gallery, Kochi, is yet another window into that remarkable imagination. Kollavarsham 1202: Munne : Ippozh : Ini [Before, Now, Hereafter], conceived and photographed by Jinson, is not merely a photographic exhibition. It is an encounter with memory, history, identity and resistance. Inspired by Kerala's complex history of the female body, clothing, caste and social power, the project brings together twelve women, twelve portraits and twelve months of the Malayalam calendar.

What immediately strikes me is the extraordinary stillness of the photographs. The women appear almost suspended outside ordinary time. Around them is a single piece of cloth, carrying within its folds centuries of changing meanings. It becomes uttariya, kanchuka, stanapatta and, eventually, the blouse we recognise today. But in Jinson's hands, it becomes much more than fabric. It becomes history, it becomes memory, it becomes poetry, and it becomes sheer genius.

The central figure, the matriarchal presence, holds the composition together like an ancient witness. Around her gather the twelve women, twelve months and twelve stories. Yet these are not simply recreations of the past. They seem to ask us to look at history from the other side of the frame, through the bodies of those who lived it, resisted it and carried its consequences forward.

That is perhaps what makes Jinson's work so powerful. He does not merely photograph people. He constructs worlds. He researches, imagines, composes and then waits for the camera to translate an idea into an image. His photographs have always carried this quality of theatricality without becoming theatre. There is drama, but also silence. There is beauty, but beneath it lies history.

Knowing Jinson personally makes the experience even more meaningful for me. For seventeen years, I have seen the creative energy behind the person, the constant search for a different perspective, the willingness to experiment and, above all, the passion to pursue an idea until it becomes something tangible. Kollavarsham 1202 feels like the culmination of that temperament.

It reminds us that history is not dead. It waits inside photographs, fabrics, gestures, faces and forgotten stories. And creative minds like Jinson's give us the privilege of travelling through time without leaving the room. They recreate histories with images that perhaps no one else could have imagined, let alone created with a camera.

That is the gift of an artist: to take an inspiration he chooses to carry, nurture it with passion and dedication, and finally hand it back to us transformed. For a few moments, we look at his photographs. And somehow, we find ourselves looking back at history.