A selection of publications from the exhibition Kaghazi Pairahan – Publishing & Resistance in South Asia, on view at Printed Matter April 24–June 20, 2024. Kaghazi Pairahan presents a traveling library of artists’ publications and printed works that respond to historical and contemporary acts of social and political dissent across Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the South Asian diaspora.

Through photobooks, zines, unpublished dummies, posters, and pamphlets from more than twenty artists, the exhibition considers various modes of publishing as strategies of resistance across interconnected struggles and experiences of marginalization. The works bring varied conceptual and documentary approaches to the circulation of photography and first person testimonies, registering the oppressive realities of state violence, entrenched patriarchy, censorship, Islamophobia, economic instability, and other concerns.

This collection represents the important act of archive-building in countering the manipulation of public memory by colonial ethno-nationalist revisionist agendas. By working in peripheral modes of publishing, artists can transmit the enduring images and messages of “inquilabis” (agents of change) that are ordinarily suppressed by state-controlled mainstream media.

Kaghazi Pairahan is curated by Devadeep Gupta & Akshay Mahajan, with design by Adira Thekkuveettil, and production by Kaamna Patel of Editions JOJO.