SOHRAB HURA

Early Years

Sohrab Hura was born in Chinsurah, India in October 1981. His father, a boxer, tried to teach Hura the sport but Hura has confessed that he “was never that great at hitting”. While studying for a Master’s at the Delhi School of Economics, Hura’s father gave him a Nikon FM10 camera, which is when he began his (self-taught) photography career. His early works focused on poverty in rural Indian communities, and he has spoken about how he thought photography could elicit change, but was gradually consumed by the guilt of the jarring contrast between the starving inhabitants of the communities he photographed and his “safe” home life. Hura’s mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and, during his early career, he chose not to photograph her because he did not want others to pity her. However, questioning himself about how he could photograph other families going through struggles but not his own, he began Life is Elsewhere (2005–2011), about his relationship with his mother, followed by Look, it’s Getting Sunny Outside!!! (2008–2014).

Sohrab Hura: Artworks

Hura’s photography began with social documentary, creating vivid portraits of life in impoverished Indian communities. He then shifted his focus on to producing visual journals of his own lived experience. He has spoken about the social-media driven change in our image-viewing habits causing us to engage less with individual photographs and the narrowing of the boundaries about what makes a “beautiful” image, revealing that he was “so tired of the photograph that I wanted to get away from it”.

He took up drawing during the Covid-19 pandemic when his own brush with the virus damaged his lungs and he couldn’t travel to take photographs. He progressed from drawing to pastel and gouache works. Hura’s practice also encompasses film, and written text.

• Land of a Thousand Struggles (2005–2006), comprised black-and-white photographs of citizens in poverty-gripped rural India engaging in physical labour, including breaking rocks. Further images included injured protestors following a rally.
• The Coast (2013–2019), began with a critique of image-making itself. The project includes a single-channel video, a book and a collection of pigment prints. Scenes of a religious festival—which Hura has described as “a little intrusive, a little violent—are accompanied by 12 fictional short stories.
• Sohrab Hura exhibited in both the Giardini and the Arsenale at the 61st Venice Biennale. The Giardini installation included paintings of memes and painted versions of family portraits, next to which he wrote captions directly on to the wall—including the words “That asshole who is always in the right place at the right time” next to a painting of two koi carp.

Sohrab Hura: Select Awards

• Eye Art and Film Prize, Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (2025)
• Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India (2021)
• Principal Prize in the International Competition, Oberhausen Online (2020)
• Photobook of the year, The Paris Photo—Aperture Foundation Photobook awards (2019)

Select Solo Exhibitions

• A Winter Summer, Experimenter, Mumbai (2026)
• The Forest, Experimenter, Kolkata (2025)
• Mother, MoMA PS1, New York City (2024)
• Ghosts in My Sleep, Experimenter, Mumbai (2024)
• Spill, Experimenter, Kolkata (2021) (later also in Amsterdam)
• The Levee: A Photographer in the American South, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati (2019)
• Sweet Life, Experimenter, Kolkata (2017)

Select Group Exhibitions

• In Minor Keys, 61st Venice Biennale (2026)
• Post Scriptum: A Museum Forgotten by Heart, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome (2024)
• The Stomach and The Port 11th Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2021)
• Searching for the Stars Amongst the Crescents, Experimenter, Kolkata (2019)
• Homelands: Art from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, Kettles Yard, Cambridge (2019)

Further Reading

• Sohrab Hura’s website
• Sohrab Hura’s Instagram
• Artist profile page at Magnum

Sohrab Hura FAQs

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