Kavi Pujara was born into an Indian family in Leicester in 1972. Despite receiving no formal training in photography, he has established himself as a photographer documenting themes of community and immigration, particularly within his home city.
Photographer Kavi Pujara was born in Leicester in 1972. At the age of 18, he moved to London. In terms of his heritage and the relationship to Britishness, he has stated in an interview: ‘My grandfather came from [Gujarat in] India to East Africa, his passport said British Indian citizen. My mum was born in Uganda, it said British Ugandan citizen, father from Kenya, British Kenyan citizen – these ideas of Britishness are so ingrained with them. There’s a myth we’re told about empire as a force for good, that my own community has bought into,’ (Pujara quoted in Whitfield, 2022). His grandfather was an indentured labourer in India.
In the 1980s, aged 12, Pujara started his photography journey. He credits a two-week summer photography workshop, funded by the local council, as the setting where he acquired the skills of developing, exposing, and creating black and white photographs. During the late 1980s, while helping out in his father's newsagent shop, Pujara found himself engrossed in photography magazines, captivated by the photographs within. However, he never received any formal training in photography and stays largely self-taught. Pujara however holds a BSc (1994) in Software Engineering from the University of Hertfordshire and an MA (2010) in Screenwriting from Royal Holloway, University of London. Pujara focuses on long-term photographic projects that explore themes of community identity, migration, and the concepts of home and locality. His methodology combines documentary-style portraits, landscapes, and still life photography to investigate the influence of geopolitical issues and social class on individual and familial narratives. In addition to independently pursuing photography, Pujara held the position of documentary editor for BBC Channel 14 from 1995 to 2008. Since 2009, he has been picture editor for BBC News. From 1999 to 2003, he served as a guest tutor in film editing within the Animation Department at the Royal College of Art in London.
In 2022, he had his first major solo exhibition This Golden Mile at the Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, accompanied by a monograph of the same name. This Golden Mile showcased his photographic series relating to Brexit, the Windrush debacle, and the government's focus on diminishing net migration, while chronicling the journey of Indian migrants to Leicester, both recent and historical. The series addressed concepts of identity, belonging, and what it means to be British. For this project, Pujara drew inspiration from personal and political events: his move to Leicester in 2016 following 27 years in London, and the 2016 European Union referendum. Upon returning to his hometown, he noted ‘it was becoming impossible to ignore the societal turn toward anti-immigration populism’ (Pujara quoted in Hingley, 2022). The project was based along The Golden Mile, a one-mile-long stretch in Leicester, featuring saree stores, Indian eateries, and jewellery shops, situated merely ten minutes from Kavi's childhood home. The photo series also served to commemorate the 50th year since Ugandan Asian refugees - ‘a community celebrated for its contributions to British life' (Hingley, 2022) - made their way to Britain, with nearly 6,000 finding a new home in Leicester. The same year (2022) also witnessed the enactment of The Nationality and Borders Act, a monumental shift in immigration law and a legacy of Brexit. Pujara considers that this legislation, which has potentially opened the way to the controversial practice of relocating refugees to Rwanda, undermines the perceived notion of what it means to be British (Hingley, 2022). The project seeks to show Britain's multicultural fabric as a direct outcome of its diverse imperial past. Pujara pointed out that the narrative of migration can linger for a long time, spanning generations, second or third generation UK-born citizens and particularly persons of colour (Cresswell, 2022).
Pujara has participated in exhibitions in the UK and internationally. In 2021-22, his photographs featured in the touring exhibition Facing Britain: British Documentary Photography since the 1960s which was presented in both Germany and Poland. He won the British Journal of Photography's Portrait of Britain 2020 award and also received a photographic grant from the Martin Parr Foundation that same year. Additionally, two images from This Golden Mile were chosen for the National Portrait Gallery's Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2022 exhibition. In 2023, he was the finalist of the Aperture Portfolio Prize. In addition to these activities and recognitions, Pujara has also held visiting artist talks and lectures at the Royal Photographic Society in Bristol, Stills Gallery in Edinburgh, SixBySix Photography in Liverpool, Norwich School of Art, Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, De Montfort University and Staffordshire University, among others. Kavi Pujara lives and works in Leicester, England, with his wife and two children. In the UK public domain, his work is held at the Martin Parr Foundation.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Kavi Pujara]
Publications related to [Kavi Pujara] in the Ben Uri Library