By Deepa Natarajan Lobo
The project is now being presented at Milan Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2027. She went on to make 30 works, and reached a point where she didn’t even need me in the room! Because the women involved are Indian but also because of how it was made, ‘Passport’ is Indian not only.
We worked across English, Kannada and Tamil, bringing different lives to one table, much like our nation, which holds together many languages, faiths, and ways of being Raghava KK You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Bengaluru | Silver Rate in Bengaluru | Bank Holidays in Bengaluru | Public Holidays in Bengaluru | Bengaluru AQI | Weather in Bengaluru | Petrol Price in Bengaluru | Diesel Price in Bengaluru | CNG Price in Bengaluru | LPG Price in Bengaluru Stay updated with the latest Bengaluru news. A passport photograph is meant to be a snapshot of an individual in their most formal, unadorned form. But what happens when this impersonal document is used to tell a deeply personal story? That’s the idea behind ‘Passport’, a project that looks at identity through the experiences of acid attack survivors. A collaboration between contemporary artist Raghava KK and Ara Lumiere — the couture initiative founded by humanitarian-entrepreneur Kulsum Shadab Wahab under the Hothur Foundation — ‘Passport’ is a series of images of acid attack survivors that were altered through digital techniques, physical interventions and acid, before being painted over by the survivors themselves. ‘A passport photo is the most unforgiving portrait’ Raghava: I have always believed that anyone can create art and what you create, in turn, creates you. A passport photograph is the most unforgiving portrait of an individual, as it allows no expression, no story — just the face as proof to say that you are you. But for these women, that very face has been erased. So, the question here became: ‘If your face can’t identify you, what can? The answer, we realised, lay in their hands. Kulsum: These women have spent much of their lives being seen through the lens of what happened to them. Milan gives us a chance to change that frame completely. They are not entering the space as victims, but as creators, artists, and women with something to say. ‘We saw fear turn into confidence’ Raghava: One of the survivors, Akkiamma, refused to paint at first. We worked on bold strokes, removing fear, and letting the hand move without the mind getting in the way. Kulsum: In most of our work, there is a clear problem we are trying to address, like arranging a surgery, rehabilitation, therapy, employment or support. With this project, there was nothing to ‘solve’. We created a space and allowed the women to respond, experiment and express themselves without the need to produce an outcome. Gradually, we saw fear turn into confidence and hesitation into instinct. These women are not entering the space as victims, but as creators, artists, and women with something to say Kulsum Shadab Wahab ‘It’s a big deal to represent India at Milan’ Raghava: It’s a big deal to represent India at Milan. We worked across English, Kannada and Tamil, bringing different lives to one table, much like our nation, which holds together many languages, faiths, and ways of being. Kulsum: Raghava and I have known each other for a long time, and there has always been a natural exchange of ideas between us. He sees beyond the obvious and is more interested in identity, the way we look at ourselves and the way the world looks at us. That felt completely aligned with the work I have been doing for years. So, when this project began to take shape, it felt like the right conversation at the right time. I trusted he would not turn the women into subjects but into collaborators. Download the TOI App.