John Mandeen : A Commemorative Photo Exhibition
‘Capturing Life’
John Mandeen Commemorative Photo Exhibition – Capturing Life.pdf
John on top of the Matrimandir, photographed by Raghubir Singh, 1994
The above photo of John on the in-construction Matrimandir, ‘captures’ part of John’s life –using a word he privileged for he viewed photography as ‘capturing life’. Recently, a part of his immense work was honored at the exhibition ‘Capturing Life’ organised by Auroville’s Prisma Unit and held at Citadines’s Centre d’Art this past August. We are honored to share some glimpses of this photo commemoration for those who could not attend, along with the videos made of his work by Arnab Chowdhury of ‘Know Your Rhythm’. Our friend John Mandeen left for his onward journey on 7th July 2024.
About John Mandeen – from Prisma’s write-up for the exhibition
John Mandeen came to India from California in the U.S. in September 1968, as a young man of 24. A month later he ended up in Pondicherry at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and made it his home. He was accepted by the Mother as an Ashramite soon after.
John helped set up the first screen printing workshop in the Ashram Press. All birthday cards with the Mother’s symbol in those days were screen-printed there, besides book covers. He took up photography in the late 1970’s and got seriously into it by the 80’s, documenting Auroville in all its aspects very extensively until the early 2020’s, including the Matrimandir.
He was completely self-taught and had to figure things out alone – by trial and error and through photo magazines whenever he could get them. Availability of materials was difficult and he managed as economically as he could, using his kitchen as his darkroom,
Since 1980 he was part of the Prisma team with Franz and Tim, and they did all the publicity work for Aurelec. Most of Prisma’s initial publications, like the architecture books, carry his photos. Later he was involved in doing pre-press work for other Prisma projects, as well as projects of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives.
In 1994 he took photos for the first Auroville Exhibition at the Visitor’s Centre, which was updated several times over the years. He was the photographer for the « Auroville Today » team till writers with point and shoot cameras took over the job.
John taught photography at Aspiration School to many Auroville kids, all adults now, some of who ended up becoming photographers themselves. Recently he was working with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives on a new book on The Mother’s Art.
‘Capturing Life’ was reported in ‘The Hindu’ https://www.thehindu.com/food/features/aphotographic-tribute-to-john-mandeens-time-at-auroville/article69875513.ece
John’s lifelong work on Auroville and India
His life companion Sunaina Mandeen (Nini) shared this perspective on the man and his work:
John was a very private person. The amount of time and energy he spent documenting Auroville over 40 years, in addition to making brochures and calendars and postcards and books for Auroville and the Matrimandir and taking photos for Auroville Today and for various other Auroville projects – not to mention all the portraits of kids he took for their mothers, should speak loudly about how he felt about Auroville, making it his karmabhoomi so to speak.
The Dalai Lama’s second visit to Auroville
He had this book ‘The Documentary Impulse’ by Stuart Franklin on his bedside bookshelf. I picked it up recently and started going through it. He always marked passages he liked in all the books he read. ‘The Life Divine’ and others are full of these marks. This is what I found in the above book:
Photography has no special status in this generalized search for truth. It stands alongside painting, sculpture, film, fiction or any diarized account. But what photography can contribute in a way other artistic and literary works cannot is its serendipitous take on life, its surrealistic freshness of vision – effortlessly revealing surprising juxtapositions and, as the writer Max Kozloff has suggested, scenes ‘that could not have been imagined’.
I found it so apt and so descriptive of John’s photos. This is exactly what he caught time and again in his photos.
From Arnab : Capturing Life As It Is
John’s photo-art recounts stories, emotions, – frozen in time, captured by the eye of his camera. A new storyline emerges wherever your gaze reposes, often within the same photograph. Sometimes sequential, sometimes simultaneous, and often with a touch of intelligent humour!
I have known John as a storyteller of photo-art since my childhood while growing up at Ashram school in the ‘80s and felt deeply intrigued by how he caught aspects of humanism and Mother Nature across decades at Auroville, the Ashram, India and beyond.
I offer our trilogy of video montages, honouring John’s work, with gratitude for the unwavering support from Nini, Franz and Karthik, and our musicians Bryce Grinlington, Sevastiana Korotynskaia and Riccardo Misto at Know Your Rhythm (https://www.ninad.in).
Several decades ago, while presenting his photo-art to me at the Ashram’s exhibition hall, John remarked:
‘Visual composition is about capturing Life as it is.’
Our trilogy is dedicated to you – dear John and that memory of our conversation :
- Capturing Life – A Selection of Photos from Auroville across 4 Decades’ (1980 – 2020): https://youtu.be/JztrKDHt45M
- Benarasi Moments: https://youtu.be/hbtKKI-OgC0
- Sarnath Pilgrim: to be launched on Bodhi Day, December 8th 2025.
For more information please contact:
prisma@auroville.org.in
Know Your Rhythm: https://www.ninad.in
