From Calcutta to Kolkata

ENTER GALLERY

Photojournalist and educator Steve Raymer is currently preparing a photographic book and exhibition about Calcutta, one of the world’s most storied and fractious cities that was known as the “First City of the British Empire” and today is officially called Kolkata. A stubborn metropolis plagued by poverty, politics, disease, and disorder, Calcutta has survived the curses of climate, colonialism, war, and mass migrations since its founding in 1698. Yet Calcutta famously remains India’s cultural capital. And today this city of at least 14 million residents is enjoying something of a comeback after decades of neglect, thanks to an influx of high technology, outsourcing, and manufacturing jobs. Raymer’s new book, titled From Calcutta to Kolkata, speaks to some of India’s most pressing issues, including such themes as globalization, modernization, and cultural traditions, while documenting, for history, the city’s most impressive public buildings and monuments. To tell a timely, inclusive, and nuanced story of India’s second largest city, Raymer is focusing particularly on the vexing social problems of inequality and development in a country where a third of the population lives on $1 a day and skyscrapers reach for the stars.