Gauri Gill, who has been called “one of India’s most respected photographers” (New York Times) and whose work is featured in When All That Is Solid Melts into Air, talks about the evolution of her photographic practice, her collaborative projects, and her ongoing engagement with rural India since 1999.

Various of Gill’s ongoing projects highlight her sustained belief in collaboration and “active listening” and in using photography as a memory practice. Her work addresses the twinned Indian identity markers of class and community as determinants of mobility and social behavior. It is marked by empathy, surprise, and a human concern over issues of survival. Among her projects is Notes from the Desert, a decade-long study of marginalized communities in rural Rajasthan. Since 2013 she has collaborated with Rajesh Vangad, a renowned Warli artist, on Fields of Sight, combining the contemporary language of photography with the ancient one of Warli drawing.