Tom Price: Kolkata's New Market


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"Stories of survival, joy and despair from a 141-year-old institution."

Tom Price is a British photographer who is currently living and working in India. His work "...is people-centred, with a focus on inequality and empowerment, especially in women and children." And he's jolly busy at it, too. 

'Pass between the front of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the huge bowler hat that perches on top of the gate to Charlie Chaplin Park, take a right onto Hogg Street and curve round until you get to the narrow entrance of what appears to be a darkened alley. Step inside, you've just entered the 141-year-old Sir Stuart Hogg Market, known locally as New Market.'

According to Wikipedia "By the 1850s, British colonists held sway in Calcutta and displayed increasing contempt for the "natives" and an aversion to brushing shoulders with them at the bazaars. In 1871, moved by a well orchestrated outcry from English residents, a committee of the Calcutta Corporation began to contemplate a market which would be the preserve of Calcutta's British residents." 

Despite two fires and regular flooding the market continues today, with 2,000 stall holders selling everything from furniture to flowers.
 
Tom is also a pretty great writer - check him out on Medium.

Also don't miss his weekly "postcard

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All images © Tom Price

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