there is a photograph in arko datto’s series in
which a large, almost ten-foot-tall loudspeaker
dominates the frame, dwarfing a man behind it and
shielding him from view. The peculiar aspect of this
image is its setting, a suburban area with a river in
the background: an unlikely place to stumble upon a
bulky piece of equipment. Despite its incompatibility
with the landscape, the loudspeaker’s wires blend in
with its surroundings and other objects in the frame,
including a discarded plastic bag, plate and twigs.
The presence of improbable man-made objects in
an unassuming, suburban landscape occurs repeat-
edly in Pik-Nik, Arko Datto’s series of images, which
examines picnicking as a cultural practice in regions
across eastern India, including Odisha, Jharkhand
and West Bengal. Datto, a photographer based out of
Kolkata, began work on this series in 2013, alongside
an accompanying video piece and a book which will
be released later this year. Datto worked simultane-
ously on a project on various islands in the Sunder-
bans that are disappearing steadily because of rising
sea levels and another project that maps the path of
the Ganga across India and Bangladesh, and explores
the relationship of residents with the river. His proj-
ects have many overlapping concerns, such as envi-
ronmental degradation and climate change, so much
so that he describes one of his images—of policemen
standing on the ruins of a nearly submerged colonial
fort on the banks of the Ganga—as “that feeling when
your different projects on climate change, the river
and picnics all come together in a heady fruition.”
Datto decided to work on Pik-Nik after a boat ride
with his family on the Rupnarayan river in 2010.
After returning, he heard that an overcrowded boat
with picnickers had capsized close to the site he
had just visited. This “tryst with death,” he said,
piqued his interest in this phenomenon. Having
observed picnickers over the winter months between
December and February, Datto said that the sites
offer a space for merriment and intimacy; the latter,
according to him, is “a possibility generally absent in
people’s homes.” He also emphasised the enthusiasm
with which the picnickers organise their outings,
with families frequently hiring buses and cooks, and
transporting vats of chicken to their chosen spots.
“Yet the most curious detail is, by and far, the ex-
travagant loudspeakers that come with nearly every
picnic group,” he said. “Transported in their own
hand-drawn carts or mini-vans, separate generators
are also brought along to pump up the electricity in
the great outdoors. Songs from recent Bengali and
Hindi blockbusters blare high above permissible
decibels.” The festive spirit notwithstanding, the
series makes subtle observations on socio-cultural
aspects of public picnics, such as the environmental
waste left in their wake or their inherently gendered
nature. Datto explained that men and women often
picnicked in segregated groups, and he had observed
a latent sense of aggression, which sometimes cul-
minated in fights breaking out between inebriated
men. “Drunk on whisky and rum, men of all ages
brawl, dance their hearts out or pass out, as wives,
girlfriends and children watch,” he said.
Once the picnickers pick their perfect spot, the
space takes on a theatrical atmosphere, transforming
into an elaborate set of sorts, with all the props in
place—music, food and drink. The pastoral land-
scape soon begins to bear markers of the gatherings,
from seemingly innocuous remnants such as clothes
hanging on trees, while their owners presumably
take dips in the river, to more serious repercussions
such as thundering noise from loudspeakers. The
most discomfiting sight, perhaps, is the abundance
of plastic and garbage that begins to merge with the
surroundings. Datto’s image of the aftermath of a
picnic, with plastic plates positioned neatly between
cacti, feels like the props of a play have stayed on
after the actors have left. “As the sun sets, the buses
pull out, leaving stray dogs and cows to feast on car-
casses, peels and leftovers amidst broken bottles and
styrofoam plates,” he said.
Datto’s way of seeing focusses on the curious and
the absurd, a tendency exaggerated by his chosen
colour palette, as desaturated scenes of festivities
impose a bleak filter suggestive of an impending
apocalypse. His style of image-making can be decep-
tive at first: straight centre-weighted composition,
a lack of jarring angles and no hyper-saturation of
colour. The images are easily dismissible as banal
activities recorded from a distance. However, Datto
often makes subtle allusions to gender dynamics,
such as the unrestrained body language of mud-
caked men sprawled on the ground or the judgment
in a man’s gaze as he stares at two people locked in
an intimate embrace.
The surroundings in which Datto’s subjects gather
are often less than idyllic—next to burning shrubs
along the dry banks of the Subarnekha river, or near
Kulpi, by the Ganga, beside brick kilns with smoke
billowing out of them. The settings of the images
are also telling of class, a characteristic that Datto
acknowledged. “The very well-off or affluent people
prefer to go to secluded or gated park type places for
their picnics,” he said. “I look at everything else.”65