Our urban fragmentation

As a photographer, I always wondered why we insisted on the concept of “still life”, when life is nothing but dynamic. Even inanimate objects are dynamic, changing their appearance as well as character in light.  How can life ever be still? Isn’t this concept of “still life” a paradox, an oxymoron? Do we exist with clarity in complete transparency? Is stillness our fundamental condition? Motion is the fundamental operating principle that governs life, and this paradoxically and intriguingly envelops life in uncertainty and ambiguity – our urban condition. Urbanism is fast, we can only sense it.

  This brings me to my main objective, to present a completely new photographic aesthetic, intrinsic to our ambiguity. I seek the asymmetry in our existence, its fleeting and fragile beauty, just master Japanese potters do. I seek imperfection and textures caused by our condition: a perpetual transience within ourselves and our environment. My objective was to capture our urban condition as it is: in impressions and abstracts, in reflections and aberrations, in refraction and fractions, and, in distractions and vibrations. Every time I photographed hoping to get two distinct human activities, I did not see the third and the forth that came onto the photograph. The aesthetics of ambiguity is not only my postulation, but, my proposal for divergence, from the convention of the still life aesthetic that had held photography hostage for more than a century. It’s an attempt to show life in impressions, by evocation and provocation, just like any painter or writer worth his salt would. Stillness is an illusion, while movement is ambiguity, both provide us with an equilibrium that sustains our sanity.

Raju Peddada is an American citizen. He is the CEO/CCO of the eponymous brand, Peddada. He is also a designer and a free-lance journalist. He exhibited at Chicago’SOFA shows. He writes and experiments in photography. He has been featured in many design magazines. The Chicago Tribune also featured him for his design products.