Montreal architect and educator Vedanta Balbahadur systematically uses photography as a way to focus his meditations on the built environment. In addition to photos taken with traditional film and digital cameras, he has used mobile telephones to take upwards of 105,000 photos over the last decade and share over 10,000 images on social media.
Utopia Planitia presents 500 images that chronicle Vedanta Balbahadur’s photographic explorations in design, teaching, music, sport, travel, and portraiture over these past 10 years. The exhibition raises questions about the ways in which we engage with the social medium that Balbahadur characterizes as Utopia Planitia, an idealized plane of human existence that serves as a mirror to our lives, adventures, dreams and memories.