UC Assistant Professor's Photos Documenting Human Condition in India Are on Display

Think about what you do every morning after you wake up — take a shower, brush your teeth, use the bathroom, wash your hands, have a drink of water. While clean, accessible water is something we take for granted, many people — especially women — in rural India struggle each day to obtain this basic necessity. 

Sean Hughes, assistant professor of journalism, witnessed the effect that accessible water has on women’s lives firsthand when he traveled to India in 2011 with two other instructors and a team of University Honors Program students from several colleges, including UC’s McMicken College of Arts and Sciences. The group traveled to three villages in Western India to document the effect that the Navinchandra Mafatlal Sadguru Water and Development Foundation (Sadguru) had on these women. Sadguru is a non-governmental organization that aids in taking people out of poverty by teaching them to use resources, technology and sustainable management practices.

One of Sadguru’s programs focuses on the development of reliable irrigation and drinking water systems. “For nearly 40 years Sadguru has gathered important statistical and scientific data concerning their impact on the rural regions of western India, in the Dahod district in the state of Gujarart,” Hughes says. 

Sadguru has helped improve the infrastructure of the area through the installment of basic irrigation systems. But the people within the villages are the ones doing the labor. They are trained to maintain the system with the use of new agricultural techniques so they can harvest a diverse supply of crops all year-round. 

But what role did Sean Hughes, a photojournalism professor and admitted photo-junkie, play in the observation of this changing culture? His focus was on the human experience. 

“Ultimately our goal was to capture the impact that simple improvements in infrastructure can have on entire villages, and more specifically on women and girls in these communities,” Hughes says. “Without easy access to water, women and girls are relegated to water gathering at distant wells, crops are poorly irrigated and the struggle to survive is constant.”

But the development of these water systems allow girls to attend school rather than work in the fields and give women the opportunity to run their own businesses selling crops.

“For the women of Dabhada, Katholiya, Chilakota, Kamboi, Sahada and Ranapur, water can lead to empowerment,” Hughes says.

Hughes was inspired by this empowerment and took photographs of the women in these villages to demonstrate how much their lives changed from something that we often take for granted — water.

His work from this trip to India is now being displayed at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center in an exhibit titled “Concerned.” The exhibit runs through Nov. 16. 

For more information about the exhibit click here.

If you would like to view more of Sean Hughes’ photos, visit his website at photopresse.photoshelter.com.