During the COVID-19 pandemic, artists Mika Sperling and Vasudhaa Narayanan engaged in a call and response exchange, between Hamburg, Germany and Bangalore, India. Due to the lockdown, both artists experienced disruptions to their practice — Sperling had to prematurely shut down a show with a new body of work at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Narayanan couldn’t return to the United States due to the closure of borders and Donald Trump’s travel ban. Consequently, the quarantine forced them to look inwards with their practice — focusing on the language of care, family, intimacy, and the solitude surrounding their homes and neighbourhoods. The exchange between them explores tonalities and emotions that are both happenstance and constructed. Making these images — that feel emotionally present and tangible — has helped them isolate from the world and yet connect with each other.

Let Me Comb Your Hair started out as an exchange of still images and brief videos back and forth, like a game of pictorial ping-pong. It aims to disrupt the divisive and binary nature of collaborative work. The ego is an ever-present aspect of creation, more so in collaborative and visual art practices. In removing any labels associated with the images — about time, place, photographer — we are left to explore only the images. This push and pull between the presence and absence of the photographer is an exploration that both artists wish to continue pursuing through this work.