Will My Mannequin Be Home When I Return? is a visceral and hallucinatory photography monograph by Indian artist Arko Datto. Published by the Italian imprint L’Artiere, the book marks the beginning of a major project exploring the nocturnal world. Datto traverses the streets of Indian megacities, using a blinding flash to pull subjects out of the shadows. The results are “electric” images of sleeping laborers, stray dogs, and plastic mannequins that feel both intimate and profoundly alienated. By documenting the city when its social structures are most fluid, Datto creates a psychological map of the modern urban experience, where the boundary between the living and the inanimate begins to dissolve.
