Anshul Roy began his journey as an artist as a traditional photographer attracted to the romantic notions of seeing the world with new eyes, finding beauty in the mundane and capturing it for the world to see and remember forever.

All that changed when he realized capturing images for the world to see and remember also meant documenting some of the worst in humanity at the same time.

“My artistic practice had a paradigm shift ever since I discovered the nefarious aspects of the medium that I loved so much and realized how the camera has historically been used as a weapon against certain groups of people,” Roy, a 28-year-old New Yorker from India, said in a recent email correspondence with The Arts Partnership.

Roy’s groundbreaking commentary on digital preservation, “Rage Against the Archive,” will run today through Jan. 30 at NDSU Renaissance Hall, 650 NP, Fifth floor, from 3 to 4 p.m.

Roy will also host a teaching demo on Jan. 30 at Minard Hall, Room 302, from 3 to 5 p.m.

Anshul Roy Portrait BnW.jpg

Challenging conversations

As part of the NDSU Visual Art & Design Visiting Scholar Series, Anshul’s visit will challenge audiences to rethink how they engage with visual culture, historical memory and the digital preservation of humanity’s past.

The lecture/performance will build on topics in “Rage Against the Archive” with a 10-minute, browser-based video intended to explore how the phenomenon of Orientalist imagery has evolved since “the other” gained more control over their representation.

By examining the subject matter from this lens, Roy hopes to impart on his audiences a sense that the proliferation of romanticized images on social media, particularly from within India and also referred to as the “colonial gaze,” is sometimes culturally degrading, not empowering.

Anthony Faris, NDSU Gallery coordinator, said he was initially drawn to Roy’s work because of the way Roy uses images, archives and history to show how power can be taken from one set of people and given to another.

“What Roy is doing is exploding what we think of as a lecture by performing for an audience about people who don’t have a voice,” Faris said. “Simply put, Anshul’s work looks at how photographs affect the way we might view a culture or group. Historical photos may document people at their worst, and those images can impact our perceptions and prejudices.”

Roy added in his correspondence that since the invention of the camera in 1839, photography has been “inextricably linked with colonial rule in various countries.”

For example, according to Roy many colonial images were made under duress, with the ulterior motive of subjugating and “othering” certain groups of people and asserting imperial dominance. It was through viewing images made in colonial India by British photographers Roy started examining the role of the camera in expressing imperial power.

“This epiphany was like coming out of Plato’s cave for me, and it changed the way I perceived and approached photography,” Roy wrote. “Hence, my current artistic practice is anchored on a critical paradigm inspired by Postcolonial discourses, exploring issues like identity, historical memory and cultural representation, with a specific interest in probing how photography was employed for othering during the British Raj.”

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As an artist interested in photography but living in a digital world, Anshul Roy wrote, “I had to grapple with the fact that most photos in our contemporary society exist as computational objects on a digital screen.” Since this realization, Roy’s art practice has embraced the “screen as a canvas” artform to make experimental video art.

Contributed / Anshul Roy

Preserving posterity, not power

Roy is aware that his work might be misinterpreted as a cry for the “cancellation of history and an appeal to not display such colonial images ever,” he wrote.

To the contrary, the artist believes it’s important to save historical images for posterity so that future generations can learn from them.

“I feel that museums and archives have an important role and great power in shaping a narrative of history. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and with my work I just want to question how archives should preserve and display photos of historical atrocities in a digitally good way? What does it actually mean to ethically consume and disseminate an image of someone’s pain online?” Roy wrote.

What is the danger of keeping these images and relics of history in archives? What is the benefit?

Anshul Roy: Nowadays, it is very easy to lose control over an image and have no authority on how it is disseminated by others. In his seminal essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin expressed his concern about an original work of art losing its aura when it is mechanically reproduced. I feel that this issue has been completely amplified in the age of digital reproduction, and hence it is important to think about such images present in our digital archives and how we all could be more conscientious consumers of online data.

At this pivotal moment, museums and institutions across the world are re-evaluating their approaches to displaying colonial artifacts from their collections. My work aims to contribute to this ongoing discourse, urging institutions to consider the ethical implications of showcasing certain materials online on their digital archives.

According to me, the concept of “digital good” encompasses the ethical, equitable and beneficial use of digital technologies. In the context of archives consisting of identities of people, a digitally good archive should strive to represent the experiences of marginalized communities accurately and respectfully.

This includes obtaining informed consent where possible and providing context to prevent the misinterpretation of historical records. Such images should not be just treated as mere “data” to be disseminated, but archives should try to be more conscious of their seriousness and should function as better custodians.

A good example of such an archive is

Yale University’s Genocide Studies

program which has photographs from the S-21 prison camp in Cambodia. This archive demonstrates a commitment to preserving historical accuracy and honoring the memory of the victims.

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According to Anshul Roy, the concept of “digital good” encompasses the ethical, equitable, and beneficial use of digital technologies. In the context of archives consisting of identities of people, a digitally good archive should strive to represent the experiences of marginalized communities accurately and respectfully.

Contributed / Anshul Roy

From your perspective, how does digital data and archives play a role in preserving history and identity?

Roy: Digital archives undoubtedly make information more accessible to a broader audience. With internet access, people from all over the world can explore and engage with archives that were once confined to specific locations. The sheer volume of data that can be stored digitally is vast. This allows for the preservation of a more comprehensive and diverse array of materials.

The role of the archivist has always been one of power, because they make the decision of what is preserved for posterity as “history” and how the narrative about the past is written. I think that this has been more democratized now with the emergence of social media, mass cameras and the internet.

We all are now both the documenters and digital archivists of our lives and have a certain agency over what gets remembered about us in the future, by posting on our Instagram and Facebook accounts. This allows a more diverse range of voices to be heard and remembered, not just those traditionally deemed worthy of preservation.

Follow Roy’s work:

Shaw’s talk is funded in part by The Arts Partnership.

This article is part of a content partnership with The Arts Partnership, a nonprofit organization cultivating the arts in Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo. For more information, visit

theartspartnership.net.





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