Bharat Sikka’s The Sapper is as multi-layered as the relationship that it narrates between a father and an adult son. Through photography, Sikka creates the possibilities for observation, recollection, close comparison, and collaboration, and gives this long-term project a title that both describes and belies its substance. The Sapper is an entitling that offers up a cue for the viewer: an explanation of the circumstances, behaviours, and predilections that we can read into the portrayal of this former 'sapper' of the Indian Army Corps of Engineers. It suggests a double-edged understanding of this father – the push and pull of his sense of selfhood – as both held in his public, now-historical role, and despite of it. The title could be read as holding its subject at an observable distance and implies, perhaps, the urge of an adult child to adopt a vantage point of parity from which to see their father as another adult.
192 pages, 24 x 28 cm, softcover, Fw: Books (Amsterdam).