Ekalokam Trust for Photography

Ekalokam Trust for Photography (EtP) is a registered foundation based in South India. Our main objective is to support and promote contemporary photography and allied art forms. Our area of activity spreads across the ancient Tamilakam territory of the tri-Sangam period, corresponding to the region comprising present-day Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Puducherry, parts of Andhra Pradesh and northern Sri Lanka. We archive, digitise and re-print the works of contemporary photographers, a long term project that has started with contemporary Indian photographer and co-founder of EtP, Abul Kalam Azad. EtP’s five year long public photo-art, Project 365 is a cultural collective that envisages generating and fostering meaningful leads and links of a living tradition with its historical and mythical past through a vast and varied photographic archive, which will be a kind of repertory of a collective vestigial memory theatre. The year-long pilot phase was organised in the ancient town Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu and the public photo-art archive a collection of about 3000 photographs collectively created by 25 leading and upcoming Indian and International photographers. The second phase of Project 365 TRI-Sangam Ports proposes to look at three ancient port towns of the south in the context of the life-world of the people and their ethos, placing them against the backdrop of the history of maritime relations and their significance in terms of cross-cultural contacts. After the year-long Project 365 tri-Sangam ports project, the third phase of the project will begin in Cauvery basin, spreading across the three South Indian states Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and the Union Territory of Puducherry. The project places special emphasis on the age-old connection of the river valley civilisation in South India with the above-mentioned ancient sea ports that became windows of peninsular India for ancient and medieval trade and cultural relations. Project 365 focuses on this association with water, which was crucial in ancient times just as it is now. We are also working towards rejuvenating and promoting traditional photography.