CL02b.jpg
CL02b.jpg

Picturing practice: people, places, and print artefacts in South Asia


• • •

A COLLABORATIVE RESOURCE
Documenting visual traces of print practices

SCROLL DOWN

Picturing practice: people, places, and print artefacts in South Asia


• • •

A COLLABORATIVE RESOURCE
Documenting visual traces of print practices

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

This is an open-ended visual resource documenting the lives, labour, and materiality of print in South Asia, from its beginnings up to the year 2000.

We are collecting images of practitioners, practices, spaces, and artefacts related to print and visual design in South Asia – you can help us significantly expand this repository by sending us your own invaluable contributions.*


This open-ended online resource aims to collate visual material from various private and institutional collections, and to include photographs, advertisements, illustrations, and other depictions of printers, lithographers, type-founders, type-setters, binders, machine operators, and designers at work, as well as print objects, local-language apparatuses, images of print shops, work spaces, type-departments, shop-floors etc. In other words, anything and everything to do with the visual and material traces of design, technology, labour, and print practice in South Asia.

*Please ensure you have the necessary copyright and/or appropriate permissions for any images you would like to submit to this repository in digital or physical form. For queries or to send material, please write to: editor [at] contextual-alternate.com
 

CL02-01


CL02-01


ABonea.jpg

△ Photographic print by E.O.S. and Company showing workers hand-setting type in Bombay in the news composing room of Times of India, November 1898. (Image reproduced with permission of the British Library Board, Shelfmark: Photo 643/(14), The British Library, London)




1930–39
Featured
△ The inauguration of the Bengali Linotype, Calcutta, 1936. Seated on the right: Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University; A.J. May, Manager of L&M in India; Tom King, Assistant Manager of L&M India. Hari Govil can be

△ The inauguration of the Bengali Linotype, Calcutta, 1936. Seated on the right: Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University; A.J. May, Manager of L&M in India; Tom King, Assistant Manager of L&M India. Hari Govil can be seen behind Tom King (in the alcove).

△ The first Tamil Linotype machine on its way to the Madras office of the Linotype Company, 1936. The Tamil machine followed the company’s Devanagari, Bengali, and Gujarati adaptations.

△ The first Tamil Linotype machine on its way to the Madras office of the Linotype Company, 1936. The Tamil machine followed the company’s Devanagari, Bengali, and Gujarati adaptations.

△ The first Tamil Linotype machine erected and running at the Linotype Company’s Madras office, 1936. The machine was equipped for English and Tamil typesetting from the same keyboard.

△ The first Tamil Linotype machine erected and running at the Linotype Company’s Madras office, 1936. The machine was equipped for English and Tamil typesetting from the same keyboard.



1940–49
Featured
△ Linotypes for setting Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu, Calcutta 1952. Linotype & Machinery’s manager in India at the time, Tom King, is seen here at the West Bengal Government Press with the Press’s superintendent A.K. Guha. The press had a battery o

△ Linotypes for setting Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu, Calcutta 1952. Linotype & Machinery’s manager in India at the time, Tom King, is seen here at the West Bengal Government Press with the Press’s superintendent A.K. Guha. The press had a battery of thirty-three machines by 1950s, nine of which were replaced by the latest models (Model 48SM) in 1952.

△ Photographs from the Lucknow Script Reform Conference 1954. J. Schemmel (right) with the governor of Uttar Pradesh K.M. Munshi and his wife, at the ‘technical exhibition’ organised by Schemmel.

△ Photographs from the Lucknow Script Reform Conference 1954. J. Schemmel (right) with the governor of Uttar Pradesh K.M. Munshi and his wife, at the ‘technical exhibition’ organised by Schemmel.

△ Photographs from the Lucknow Script Reform Conference 1954. A demonstration of the Hindi teleprinter (in the background) at the conference. Source: Indian Print & Paper , July 1954 (Collection of Vaibhav Singh)

△ Photographs from the Lucknow Script Reform Conference 1954. A demonstration of the Hindi teleprinter (in the background) at the conference.
Source: Indian Print & Paper, July 1954 (Collection of Vaibhav Singh)

△ Three Linotypes on the Ceylon Government Press stand at the Colombo Plan Exhibition, 1952. In attendance on the stand: Bernard de Silva, acting government printer, and Tom King, Linotype & Machinery Manager in India, Ceylon, and Burma.

△ Three Linotypes on the Ceylon Government Press stand at the Colombo Plan Exhibition, 1952. In attendance on the stand: Bernard de Silva, acting government printer, and Tom King, Linotype & Machinery Manager in India, Ceylon, and Burma.

△ Pictures of Times of India Press showing sections of the press rooms, 1953. Sections are equipped with Linotype & Machinery two-colour Letterpress Machines and Miehles. Top left: K.C. Raman, assistant production manager, and L. Warbrick, the w

△ Pictures of Times of India Press showing sections of the press rooms, 1953. Sections are equipped with Linotype & Machinery two-colour Letterpress Machines and Miehles. Top left: K.C. Raman, assistant production manager, and L. Warbrick, the works superintendent.

△ General impression of the fine machine room in the Bombay Municipal Printing Press, 1953. The equipment includes four Centurette presses .

△ General impression of the fine machine room in the Bombay Municipal Printing Press, 1953. The equipment includes four Centurette presses .

△ Dr Syedna Taher Saifuddin, high priest of the Bohra community in Pakistan, sitting at the keyboard of a Model 48 Linotype, 1953. Unidentified man explaining the bilingual English-Urdu features of the keyboard layout while relatives and followers w

△ Dr Syedna Taher Saifuddin, high priest of the Bohra community in Pakistan, sitting at the keyboard of a Model 48 Linotype, 1953. Unidentified man explaining the bilingual English-Urdu features of the keyboard layout while relatives and followers watch.

△ This Model 48 Linotype was formally installed in the Assam Government Press, Shillong, by the Hon Minister Rupnath Brahma. Standing by the Linotype are S. Ahmed, superintendent of the Press, Iswar Chandra Chaudhuri, and Satish Chandra Kakati, assi

△ This Model 48 Linotype was formally installed in the Assam Government Press, Shillong, by the Hon Minister Rupnath Brahma. Standing by the Linotype are S. Ahmed, superintendent of the Press, Iswar Chandra Chaudhuri, and Satish Chandra Kakati, assistant directors of information and publicity of the Government of Assam.

△ The Government Central Press Bombay, 1954. The Press had sixteen Linotypes and thirty printing machines of various sizes in operation at this time. It employed 1200 people working in two shifts, managed by D.K. Pradhan, senior technical officer, w

△ The Government Central Press Bombay, 1954. The Press had sixteen Linotypes and thirty printing machines of various sizes in operation at this time. It employed 1200 people working in two shifts, managed by D.K. Pradhan, senior technical officer, with principal deputy superintendent B.S. Naik.