180 - Pradip Malde

Pradip Malde is a photographer and a professor at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, where he is the co-director of the Haiti Institute. Much of his work considers the experience of loss and how it serves as a catalyst for regeneration. He is currently working in rural communities in Haiti, Tanzania and Tennessee, designing models for community development through photography. Pradip’s works are held in the collections of the Museum of the Art Institute, Chicago; Princeton University Museum; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Yale University Museum and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, among others. He is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. Pradip was born in Arusha, Tanzania in 1957. His parents were the children of Indians who emigrated to East Africa but had to flee from the turmoil that spread through that region in the 1970s. Concerned about loss and belonging since then, he has come to think of artifacts as membranes, where what may be explicit and immutable begins to lead us into the realms of memory and meaning, and, ultimately, an understanding of the experiences of others. Pradip’s first monograph, entitiled From Where Loss Comes, was recently published by Charcoal Press. It is an unblinking look at how sacrifice and belonging are deeply rooted in the human experience, examining the story of the root causes of female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C). On episode 180, Pradip discusses, among other things: ResilienceHow boarding school in England changed his lifeScotlandSawanee and teachingHow loss serves as a catalyst for regenerationFrom Where Loss Comesand why it’s important for him that the book is not just about FGM/CHaitiHis love of platinum and other arcane printing processesGoing digital Website | Instagram “The work that we do as photographers is about transforming attitudes; about giving access to a poetic experience; it is about somehow reaching beyond our day to day lives; it is about aspiring to be better. And that’s all big stuff.”