Title: Daughters of Devi: A Portrait of Young Women in Contemporary India
Content:
Title: Daughters of Devi: A Portrait of Young Women in Contemporary India
For four weeks, I traversed South India, from Mumbai to Kerala, immersing myself in the lives of young women across cities, villages, and family homes. Drawn to the spaces where they reside, grow, care for one another, and envision their futures, these photographs emerged from encounters with sisters, daughters, mothers, and friends whose lives are influenced by tradition yet shaped by a rapidly evolving society.
In my photographic work, I seek to capture the relationships that exist beneath the surface – the intimate bonds between women, the spaces they create for each other, and the quiet forms of solidarity that sustain everyday life. Across diverse cultural and social realities, I found a common language of closeness. In kitchens, courtyards, bedrooms, and on the streets, women shared laughter, secrets, gestures of care, and moments of freedom. These women-only spaces became arenas where another world could unfold.
The title "Devi," meaning "Goddess" in Sanskrit, refers to the divine feminine in Hinduism. For me, it also represents the complex individuals I encountered – not idealized images of femininity, but women carrying contradictions, expectations, and desires. They bear families, traditions, and care work while negotiating education, independence, sexuality, and their place within a transforming India.
The series traverses different generations and realities, moving between rural and urban life, inherited traditions, and new possibilities. Some of the young women I met still aspire to access education, greater autonomy, or basic infrastructure. Others already navigate modern cities with confidence, studying, working, and shaping lives increasingly separate from traditional expectations.
My photographs do not aim to define what it means to be a woman in India. Instead, they seek out the intimate moments where individual lives become visible – a sister leaning against another, friends preparing for a celebration, a mother watching her daughters. Through these encounters, the personal becomes a portrait of a society in transition.
The work continues my ongoing photographic exploration of female perspectives, intimacy, and the spaces women create between one another. Whether in Berlin or South India, I am interested in women not as isolated subjects but as part of a network of relationships. These connections form an invisible architecture of care and belonging.