Art patron Saloni Doshi’s nostalgic photographic collection displays

Founded in 2009 by Mumbai-based art patron and collector Saloni Doshi, Space118, in Mumbai’s Mazgaon area, has hosted around 450 artists as part of its residency program. This long and dynamic legacy came to an abrupt halt during the pandemic. Since then, Doshi has been offering financial grants to young artists but the physical space has remained vacant. She used her time in lockdown to document her personal collection and since there was a readily available space, decided to host an exhibition showcasing her collection. “I thought about showing parts of the collection, because I personally wanted to see it,” she says. This has led to The Right To Look, curated by Amit Kumar Jain, on view from 16 November to 30 December. This is part one of the exhibition, focusing largely on figurative and performance photography, while part two will open in January and have more landscape and abstract photography. After that, a book, based on the collection, will also be published.

Doshi has been collecting for over 20 years, since the age of 23. During those young years, she collected without giving a thought to building a formal collection. She collected because she was moved by a picture and needed to own it. In this endeavour, she has been aided by her education. Doshi has studied under Jeroo Mulla, earning a postgraduate diploma in Social Communications Media at Sophia College. “When you’ve been trained to look at a photograph and what it should be composed of, it becomes natural to understand photography and buy it.” While collecting, it didn’t matter to her whether the photo was printed on canvas or a metal sheet. The medium, for Doshi, is simply a way of communicating a message. What mattered was the frame and its components, and her liking it enough to want to own it.

She has a very instinctive buying process, focusing on the theme of the picture, the components of the frame, and the mood or feeling it’s evoking. For instance, one of the artworks that hung in her office for several years is an ink on paper work showing a girl’s face with clips all over it. Whoever saw that coiled away from it. But Doshi is intrigued by its quiet intensity. “It’s one of the most painful things to see. I could feel her pain and hence, my own went away.” Like this, all her works speak to her in some way. If they didn’t, she wouldn’t have bought them. “That’s the only language I understand. What the artist is trying to communicate and how I make sense of that message through my own experiences.” Essentially, her purchases are a reflection of her mind at the time of buying. “I haven’t shied away from buying what my feelings are. Most people wouldn’t buy works that don’t make them happy. I buy works that describe my life.”

But although a deeply instinctive and cathartic process, buying these images, especially during her younger days, was a “painful and lonely journey.” For one, she’s a first generation collector and her family didn’t understand why she needed to buy so many artworks, meaning she was using her own money to make these purchases. It meant foregoing indulgences like a new purse or a pair of shoes, or sometimes even a holiday, to afford an artwork, which wasn’t a fun process. She was also lonely because neither her family nor her friends understood her need to own images. Her friends would rather spend their time frequenting clubs or partake in other activities popular during those ages. “There was no concept of collecting. It’s abnormal to do what I was doing.”

However, given her passion for photography, she stuck with it, visiting art shows and biennales to find the works that would speak to her. Over time, she found likeminded people and a community. In now opening up her collection to the public, she’s celebrating the works, which are, in many ways, a personal archive of her personal journey. The approximately 45 works on display include works by several respected photographers and standout works like Pushpamala N’s The Arrival Of Vasco Da Gama (2014), Umrao Singh Sher-Gil’s Amrita with models for young girls (1932), Nikhil Chopra’s Yog Raj Chitrakar series (2008), Jyoti Bhatt’s Mandana (2007), Sohrab Hura’s Life is Elsewhere F (2005) and Gauri Gill’s Boy Bathing in Taalab (2012).

Saloni Doshi's collection titled The Right To Look is on display at Space118 from 16 November to 30 December.