The Promise is the second chapter of Vasantha Yogananthan’s long-term project A Myth of Two Souls, which offers a contemporary retelling of The Ramayana. First recorded by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 BC, The Ramayana is one of the founding epics of Hindu mythology, composed of seven chapters. Since 2013, Yogananthan has been travelling from north to south India, retracing the itinerary of the epic’s heroes.
Between fiction and reality, the photographer deliberately blurs the lines through multiple aesthetic approaches: colour, hand-painted and illustrated photographs are interspersed with vernacular images to compose the layers of this timeless story. This second book celebrates the love between Rama and Sita, the two main characters of the story. Their union, a festive but challenging event, is strongly embedded in the collective imagination in India and Nepal.
The Ramayana has been continuously rewritten and reinterpreted through time, and for Yogananthan’s book it has been retold by Indian writer Arshia Sattar. A Myth of Two Souls was conceived as seven photobooks, one for each chapter of the epic.
Vasantha Yogananthan was born in 1985 in Grenoble and lives and works in Marseille. He is a self-taught photographer deeply attached to silver photography, and the book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. His projects have unfolded over long periods, first in France on the beach at Piémanson from 2009 to 2013, then in India and Sri Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana from 2013 to 2021. In 2022 he carried out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, of which he is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery Contemporary (Mumbai) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
This first edition was designed by Kummer & Herrman with text by Arshia Sattar. It comprises 116 pages and 63 plates, measures 24.5 × 30 cm, and is issued as a section-sewn hardcover in French and English, published on 18 April 2017. It was shortlisted for the Arles Author Book Award in 2017.
