No One Is a Stranger: Photographs by Kushal Ray
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Date: 29th August – 20th September, 2025
Time: 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Venue: 1st Floor, KCC
For over four decades, photographer, painter, and former sports journalist Kushal Ray has quietly pursued an intimate quest — to explore the fluid idea of family through the camera’s lens. His practice rejects spectacle, embracing instead the slow companionships and quiet rhythms of shared life. Whether in the intimate interiors of a south Kolkata home or the high-altitude landscapes of Ladakh, Ray’s photographs are imbued with tenderness, memory, and the patience of return.
From his celebrated Intimacies series, chronicling the everyday rituals of the Chatterjee family over 14 years, to his decades-long documentation of Ladakh’s people and changing environment, Ray invites viewers to step into relationships as lived spaces. In his words, photography is “a unique adventure to discover how I am placed with the people I like and love” — an experience he shares with unflinching honesty and empathy.
Curated by Swastik Pal, No One Is a Stranger brings together 65 works from across Ray’s expansive archive, tracing the threads of belonging, friendship, and kinship that bind his life and art. The exhibition is less a gallery viewing and more a quiet walk alongside the artist, through rooms where conversations linger and landscapes where the wind carries familiar voices.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kushal Ray is a Kolkata-based photographer, painter, and former sports journalist whose work spans over 40 years. Known for his deep engagement with the theme of family — both inherited and chosen — Ray’s photographs are celebrated for their intimacy, narrative depth, and unwavering commitment to lived experience. His acclaimed series Intimacies documented the life of a south Kolkata household over 14 years, while his long-term work in Ladakh captures the region’s shifting cultural and ecological landscapes. Ray’s work has been exhibited widely and is regarded as an important testament to the quiet persistence of personal storytelling in photography.
