The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 13, 2025
Poles and Tree, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
2013, printed 2017
(French, b. 1985)
Image: 17 x 20.9 cm (6 11/16 x 8 1/4 in.); Paper: 17.7 x 23.9 cm (6 15/16 x 9 7/16 in.)
Transfer from Ingalls Library 2023.37
Location: Not on view
Did You Know?
Vasantha Yogananthan views his photographic retelling of the ancient Indian epic the Ramayana (Rama’s Journey) as a journey to his own self-discovery.Description
Yogananthan’s version of the tale of the fourteen-year exile of the hero Rama from his homelandfreely merges fiction and reality. He juxtaposes photographs of historical settings from the Ramayana with glimpses of everyday life today on the subcontinent. In Poles and Tree, two people shelter under a tree in a non-descript urban setting. Mist obscures the view, echoing Yogananthan’s blurring of past with present in his recasting of this classic Indian epic.- {{cite web|title=Poles and Tree, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India|url=false|author=Vasantha Yogananthan|year=2013, printed 2017|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2023.37