Photos or pulp fictions?

Gauri Gill's portraits showcase ordinary folks, doing ordinary things, but wearing extraordinary masks. See why the quirky series offers more than what meets the eye

- MIRA F MALHOTRA

I'm fascinated with Gauri Gill's photographic series, Acts of Appearance. The images capture people in everyday acts - sitting at a dining table, teaching, minding a roadside shop, chopping vegetables, playing carrom and more. However, their faces are covered with papier-mache Bahora masks made by folk artists from the Jawhar district in Maharashtra.

Despite being positioned in mundane, ordinary backdrops, these photographs have an otherworldly quality about them. Gauri Gill tampers with the way our brain recognises human beings. The proportions of the heads are exaggerated. Bahora masks typically depict gods or deities. Here, the figures have a mix of human or humanoid characteristics. People wear the heads of animals, but the body is human. In some cases, they wear human heads. There is even a mask of a mobile phone! The result is humorous and surprising.