Dr Ravi: Good afternoon and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. To begin, can you tell us something about yourself?
Dr Unni: I was Pulikkal Subran and Vilasini’s second son born in 1969. At that time Chettichal, the remote village in Thrissur district, Kerala, India where I was born, was a ‘pure’ village in the real sense, with all the features and richness of a remote countryside untouched by modernization.
Maybe I was destined to be alone while growing up. I grew up as an introvert. Spoke little; brooded always. Plants and flowers, bees and butterflies, birds and branches of sandalwood, dreams, and I – all grew up together. The silence was our language. Intimacy was our grammar.
In 1986 I enrolled in the Government Medical College, Thrissur. Seven years after this (in 1993) was the most important phase of my evolution. I learned the simple truth that while friends are the greatest teachers of life and love, they are also, by the very nature of close friendship, able to “invade” your emotional and psychological space, to manipulate your thoughts, actions, and even perceptions of the world, sometimes even negatively. At this time my tastes in the arts began to change; light music gave way to classical compositions and watercolors to oils and acrylics. Themes evolved from landscapes to surrealism, to abstraction and postmodernism.
Dr Ravi: What got you interested in the arts?
Dr Unni: Frankly, it was a natural activity for me, just like eating and playing, right from the earliest days I remember. I used to draw and paint from childhood days, continued it always. With more ‘education’, always informal, from my artist-teachers, the style changed, subject matter changed, and the materials changed. The most important change was the medium. My primary medium changed to photography from the late 1990s. I do paint even now, and make sculptures from found objects and granite, and create on-site installations. What keeps me attached to photography is its innate quality of making memories permanent, and its quality of refining my vision of the world.
Dr Ravi: You were a keen painter during your undergraduate medical days. Do you still pursue painting?
Dr Unni: Yes, I do. But I seldom exhibit. It remains mostly a private engagement. After opting for photography as my primary medium, I have been combining photographic printmaking with painterly practices like over-painting and over-drawing on photographs creating works of art that stay at liminal spaces, smoothening the distinction between painting and photography.
Dr Ravi: When and how did you get interested in photography?
Dr Unni: I got interested in photography around 1995, and I bought my first SLR camera a few years later; photography has occupied the major share of my expressive activities since then. At that time, it was my connection with nature and its beauty that attracted me to photography. I was always amazed by the transience of natural phenomena like light, the moon, and the monsoon. What attracted me was the fleeting moments in the natural world that had no permanence. I hoped to preserve those moments through photography. Later I understood that the transient moments must be transient to possess their innate elegance. This understanding took me to more of conceptual art photography wherein I had to tax heavily my imagination, execution, and labor-intensive processes in both analog and digital photography. Through this practice, I was trying to make my thoughts and memories into palpable objects that can last and stimulate me (and others) to make more meaningful art.
Dr Ravi: What were some key moments in your journey as a photographer?
Dr Unni: For a true photographic artist, every moment is a key moment, the only question being how sensitive he or she is in recognizing the true significance of the moment. As for my evolution as an artist, one significant point in time was my meeting with Mr. Vijayakumar Menon, an art historian and teacher, a relationship that lasted for decades until his passing a year ago. Some other people who influenced me as an artist were Mr. T.N.A. Perumal, a nature photographer and naturalist, and Mr. Theo Berends of the Netherlands, a fine art photographer. The single most important influence in my evolution was, and continues to be, my association and friendship with platinum photographer and photo-historian Mr. Herbert Ascherman Jr, of Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He mentored me in the nuances of black & white photography and analog photographic processes in his Cleveland studio.
If you mean to ask about my achievements, I have had solo exhibitions in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in the USA, the Film and Industry Museum in Germany, and a few group shows in Australia, the Middle East, and the UK, in addition to several venues in India. I received the title ‘Associate of the Royal Photographic Society’ from London in 2007 and a Senior Fellowship from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, in 2013. Along with some of my friends, I founded PhotoMuse – the Museum of Photography in Kerala, southern India, in 2014, the first of its kind in the country. What I consider the greatest achievement is my contribution to mentoring a new generation of photographers in Kerala and beyond, imparting to them the same edge of a new vision that I owed to my mentors, through various academic activities of PhotoMuse over a decade.
Websites by Dr. Unni Krishnan Pulikkal
Dr Ravi: How did the idea of the photography museum (PhotoMuse) come to you?
Dr Unni: My interest in the arts and its history has taken me to many museums around the world. Most of my journeys, especially those I did in the company of my mentor Herbert Ascherman Jr., always focus on art and photography museums. This allowed me to understand how important museums are to preserve our cultural legacy, to spread awareness about the cultural and humanistic significance of art, and to appreciate how significant it is to instill goodness in the human mind through art, music, literature and other cultural practices. This becomes especially important in a world filled with falsehood, negativism, antagonism, and violence. It was this realization that fuelled thoughts of setting up a museum of photography – the PhotoMuse – that can over time become a repository of photographic legacy and become a universally accessible tool to impart cultural education and spread awareness about the environment.
Dr Ravi: Can you share some interesting facts about the museum and its inauguration?
Dr Unni: The ‘museum’ was, interestingly, begun in a 50 square foot space (yes, you read it right – fifty square feet!) under the stairs of the Sneha hospital, with one staff, one computer and a small rack, in 2014. Soon, we shifted to a rented building and later moved to two other rented places over 10 years. In 2023 we purchased land, redesigned the existing building into a contemporary museum, and shifted to this new place in early 2024. The museum now holds more than 15000 objects of photographic history and is growing! It now has a board of trustees, and around 500 active subscribed members. Mr. Herbert Ascherman Jr. who underwrote the museum and is an advisor to the museum flew in on very short notice from the USA to India to inaugurate the museum on 10th March 2024.
Dr Ravi: You have blended the modern and the ancient in your house. Can you share something on how you constructed the house? And how you maintain it?
Dr Unni: My house is basically built in a traditional South Indian design. It was made with locally available natural materials like laterite and wood, mostly reused wood sourced from other ancient houses. The only space that you could probably call modern is my studio where I have photographic equipment, and the paraphernalia for printmaking. It also doubles up as an acoustically designed space for music and movies.
The goodness of art nourishes my mind, and cultivates a more humanistic culture within, helping me recognize patients as ‘human beings with a problem’ rather than ‘cases with beautiful findings’.
Dr Ravi: How do you balance your medical practice with your photography and artistic interests?
Dr Unni: Even though my formal training was in modern allopathic medicine, not art, I am living now as a part-time medical practitioner. I practice medicine half of the day, and art during the other half. It goes in a highly synchronous way because the basic undercurrent in both streams is humanism. Medicine heals mostly physical illnesses; art promotes mental wellness. The feel-good moments of art practice help me balance the stressful hours of medical practice. The goodness of art nourishes my mind, and cultivates a more humanistic culture within, helping me recognize patients as ‘human beings with a problem’ rather than ‘cases with beautiful findings’.
Dr Ravi: You have an open-air art gallery at the entrance to your hospital. Can you mention more about this gallery?
Dr Unni: Yes, the Open Art Gallery in a hospital is something rare in India, I think. It is a project by PhotoMuse Museum and sponsored by the hospital. It was established in memory of Vijayakumar Menon, an advisor of the museum right from its inception. The gallery holds photographic and art exhibitions around the year, accessible 24 hours a day to the patients, bystanders, and the public at large. In addition to this, the hospital exhibits various works of visual art on its walls. Together, these works of art create a soothing ambiance that calms and eases ailing minds.
Dr Ravi: What are your future plans for the museum?
Dr Unni: We are trying our best to broaden its activities, enlarge its already good collection, widen its reach to different strata of society, and, if possible, rebuild the museum with more space and amenities.
Dr Ravi: How do you think arts should be incorporated into the medical curriculum in Kerala?
Dr Unni: Fascinating and relevant question! Medical professionals need to be exposed to more cultural spaces of the country to broaden their humanitarian outlook and increase their understanding of how people engage with that cultural space. This exposure to the humanities will strengthen medical professionals’ ability to make sensible diagnoses based on peoples’ socio-cultural backgrounds and deliver treatment with humanism at heart and hand.
Dr Ravi: Any other points from your side?
Dr Unni: As part of broadening my cultural activities, I have stepped into another new art project. In addition to the PhotoMuse Museum which holds my photographic collections, I am curating another art museum at Kodakara in Kerala. The Art Museum of Love, which opened for public viewing on June 10th, 2024, holds and exhibits most of my art collection. It is based on the theme of LOVE, and consists of pieces which I have collected over the last 25 years, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, fabrics, and more. I hope this museum will help more people understand the value of the emotion we call love with a vast spectrum of intertwined emotional threads, including friendship, parental love, romantic love, and sexuality.
Happiness to you!
Unni
Dr. P. Ravi Shankar was a classmate of Dr Unnikrishnan at the Government Medical College, Thrissur, Kerala and lived in the same residence hall with him. He has long been fascinated by Dr Unni’s work and visited him at his home in December 2023.
Webphoto: Jodhpur Royal family, c.1910, Albumen Print, 300×260 mm, Unknown Photographer, PhotoMuse Collection
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It’s fascinating how the arts, especially photography, can enhance emotional intelligence and empathy in medical professionals, fostering a deeper understanding of patients beyond their clinical symptoms.
Absolutely, I agree. For example, the “Visual Thinking Strategies” program, which uses art to improve observational skills and emotional understanding, has been successfully integrated into medical training. Studies show that medical professionals who engage in art-based exercises develop greater empathy and better communication skills, enhancing their interactions with patients and improving overall care.