‘Untitled Film Stills’ is made up of seventy photographs, sixty-nine taken from 1977 to 1980, plus one added later; that explore stereotypical female roles in scenes inspired by 1950s and ’60s Hollywood, film noir, B movies, and European art-house films. Fascinated by costume and makeup and the role it played in constructing identity, she placed herself as the subject of the images and began to explore the gender notions that come into play when portraying women on a screen. 

After working as a photojournalist for a London based co-operative for many years, Suyanita felt that her photographs were making no difference to India’s social problems, and she could not go on “earning a living from the distress of others”. She returned home and began photographing portraits of middle-class Indian families to portray the traditional, colonial, and religious India being superimposed by an edgy Western contemporary style. As she began to gather materials for exhibitions, she would create her“book-objects”: a book, an object for display, an exhibition and a catalogue of that exhibition all in one. She would call them the museums of the future, a new type of art gallery accessible to everyone.

Deana, who would often find strangers in the street to photograph, stylises a regal quality to everyday people and their homes. Playing into the themes of family, love and desire, she offers viewers an intimate glance into the lives of those photographed. However, “familiarity doesn’t equate to access”. In their raw state of representation, Deana’s subjects maintain a sense of self-composure, that remind the viewer that they are lucky to be allowed a glimpse into their homes.