Women Behind the Lens
Grow With Inès Elsa Dalal
Inès Elsa Dalal is a documentary photographer. Concerned with the ethics of portraiture, she is committed to confronting systemic injustice – particularly racism and xenophobia.
Born in Nottingham to a Swiss, Italian mother and a German, Parsi (Iranian-Indian) father, Dalal’s own mixed heritage informs the tenderness with which she approaches portrait sitters and the communities she co-creates with.
Dalal initiates long-form documentary portraiture projects and responds to commissions, while tutoring nationally and lecturing internationally. Most recently, Dalal was invited to speak at an international conference (organised in partnership with Université Paris-Est Créteil), and has since been invited to lecture at Université Bordeaux.
Dalal is currently based in London and available to work in Europe/worldwide.
What are three words that describe how you’re feeling right now?
Ambivalent, pensive, chilled.
What is your latest project about?
Here To Stay is a documentary portraiture and oral history archive, commissioned in 2018 to acknowledge and celebrate seventy years since 1948 – the post WW2 arrival of the Windrush Generation, which led to the birth of the National Health Service. This historical landmark established the NHS’s migrant-majority workforce. Now, 74 years later, the Windrush pioneers and their descendants continue to be the backbone and bloodline of our NHS.
This documentary portraiture series and oral history archive has been touring across the UK consistently during the past four years, despite the pandemic! Notable venues include the exhibition’s launch at Truman Brewery in East London and, most recently, a six month residency at Wolverhampton Art Gallery. You can find it here on IG: #HereToStay70.
What is your greatest source of inspiration or motivation?
Injustice is my main motivation, or rather, my quest for restorative, transformational, social justice. Racial injustice is particularly tender for me because of my deep reverence and appreciation of the kaleidoscopic nature of my ancestry, as well as a baseline heartfelt respect for my ancestors – particularly my maternal Italian element and paternal Parsi connection.
I witnessed racial slurs on the playground at primary school and though not directed at me I felt very viscerally that it was wrong and hurtful. That feeling has stayed with me ever since and catalyses how compelled I feel to speak out today, the same way I did back then.
I’ve been subject to some pretty atrocious comments about the mixed nature of my heritage throughout my teenage years and adult life, particularly when confronted with people who were not used to socialising with people of ethnicities other than their own, who hail from the rural towns/villages in the south of England…
I also, notably, spent my formative years in Birmingham and throughout my decade-strong career, I have felt a lot more understood, appreciated and celebrated by and connected with Black and Brown communities than my own nuclear family!
What is your creative process?
My creative process is my entire lifestyle: by having a holistic approach to how and where I choose to spend my time as well as what media (or lack of) I choose to expose myself to, I cultivate the psychological safety and emotional wellbeing to be able to think obliquely. Creative thinking requires a lot of time and space – for me it’s about having a clear mind to be able to subconsciously think and feel constantly, rather than subjecting myself to a soul-destroying day job void of meaning and purpose. I tried that and I cannot! It’s not just ‘boring’, it’s truly crushing for me to participate in anything I don’t fully believe in, whether personal or professional.
When it comes to actually orchestrating a portrait sitting or oral history interview, time and the appropriate environment/energy are the main components that bind everything together and create a sense of harmony.
The feeling of reverence and surrender I bring when in communion with portrait sitters holds space for them to feel comfortable to express themselves.
How can our community engage with your project?
Someday I hope to have a physical space for archive, print sales, portrait sittings and a gallery for exhibitions, to collect and curate the work of like-minded artists. Until then, please support my endeavours through words of encouragement and, if appropriate, financially. Any funds contributed will support the continuation of my projects which so far have always been created independent, without direct/strategic public funding.
To support me financially, my PayPal is my email address: dalal@ineselsa.com.
As the season of springtime rejuvenation is here, what do you hope the world creates space for? What do you hope the world receives from your work?
As someone with Parsi ancestry, Spring Equinox is pivotal to me because I celebrate Nowruz (Parsi New Year). Right now I hope the world creates space for healing.
As for my work, I hope both the portraits I co-create with sitters, and the special oral history interviews (either via audio or written transcript), find their way onto the screens and into the eyes of people who need to read and see them. I hope gallery goers and online browsers/supporters feel a deep sense of kinship and acknowledgement when they witness my work. I hope that I breathe new life into them and that they feel refreshed, rejuvenated and respected just with the knowledge that I’m doing the work I do in such a heartfelt and sincere manner.
What are you:
Listening to? My sonic alter-ego is ‘Bombay Mix’, referencing my Parsi ancestors migrating from Iran to settle in Maharashtra/Gujarat … if enough people subscribe to my YouTube I might drop some mixes ;)
Reading? I’ve just finished Adrienne Marie Brown’s Pleasure Activism, and wow, I wanna read it all over again! I’ve made a start on Gloria Steinem’s Revolution From Within, but I’m struggling to read it regularly because it’s pretty heavy and I have to be in a certain mood to expose myself to content of that nature.
Watching? I hate saying this because I don’t mean to come across as righteous or pretentious but truthfully: nothing! I have all the subscriptions but I find the illusion of choice so paralysing … to be totally honest, I usually see an old/rare/classic film referenced on IG, search for it, realise it’s not streamed as part of any of the subscriptions I have and just pay £3.50 to rent it. Once I set my mind on something I struggle to settle for less, it’s a matter of principle!
