Kalpesh Lathigra is a Senior Lecturer in Photography on the MA Commercial Photography course at London College of Communication. He is a British artist whose work occupies the space between documentary and art practice.
Kalpesh studied photojournalism at the London College of Printing. He was awarded a 1st Arts prize in the World Press Photo in 2000. In 2003, he embarked on a project documenting the lives of Widows in India, receiving The W.Eugene Smith Fellowship and Churchill Fellowship. It was during this time he moved away from photojournalism towards an art based practice.
Kalpesh was awarded a Lightwork Residency in conjunction with Autograph in 2014 and in 2015, a Photoworks Commission for the Brighton Photo Biennial 2014, working in collaboration with South African artist Thabiso Sekgala to produce new works, A Return to Elsewhere.
His first book, Lost in the Wilderness, a body of photographs on the Oglala Sioux and Pine Ridge Reservation was published in 2015 and noted by The Guardian critic, Sean O Hagan as one of the photo books of the year. Lost in the Wilderness explores the weight of colonialism on a community and the shared experiences of the artist's background.
Memoire Temporelle was published in Spring 2022. It reflects on real and perceived memories based in Bombay, using Kalpesh's South Asian lineage as a foundation for the work. It explores the ideas of nostalgia, the insider/outsider view and melancholic longing for the notion of home. The work was made in collaboration with Emmanuelle Peri who edited the photographs and sequenced the subsequent book. The collaboration allowed for both an engagement and a disengagement. A working methodology was put into place where upon, Peri had full control after the photographs had been made with no interference or dictate by Kalpesh. Peri advised on further research using her background in Art History and Museology. The work contains three pieces of writing from Lathigra and three from Rabrindranath Tagore. It is the first part of a trilogy of works.
Kalpesh is currently working on a series titled A Democratic Portrait, using a Polaroid Passport Camera and Fuji FP 100C film which is no longer made, alongside What Remains is All I See, a body of photographs that reflect his evolving practice as an artist interrogating his process.
Prior to working at LCC, Kalpesh was an associate lecturer at Southbank University as well as working with Syracuse University on their international exchange programme. Alongside his teaching he continues to contribute to international magazines/commercial clients as well as his personal projects.
Visit the MA Commercial Photography course page
Kalpeshlathigra.com/kalpeshlathigra