From Alexxa Gotthardt’s review of “Talking Pictures: Camera-Phone Conversations Bet” for Artsy:
[Manjari] Sharma and [Irina] Rozovsky’s conversation is the most intimate and tender in the show. Just before the project began, the two photographers confessed to each other that they were pregnant. Serendipitously, both were due within three weeks of each other in April, just before their conversation of images would come to a close.
The exchange of photos that ensued shows the excitement of nurturing new life in their bodies, but also feelings of uncertainty about bringing a child into a turbulent political climate. In one shot by Sharma, a pregnant belly mirrors the watermelon next to it. Rozovsky responds with an image of her hand holding a beet high in the air. It resembles a bleeding heart.
While moments of joy are tempered with those of disquiet throughout Sharma and Rozovsky’s conversation, the coda is decidedly optimistic: Both gaze at their newborns in awe. For the two artists, the discourse of images they developed was so fruitful that they have continued to collaborate beyond the project’s April deadline.
Browse the series “Talking Pictures” at ClampArt
Browse all of Manjari Sharma’s work at ClampArt