British Council British Council Visual Arts

Catherine Yass represented Britain at the 10th Indian Triennale. Where she was awarded one of the nine prizes by the Triennale committee for a new body of work specially commissioned by the British Council. The series, entitled Star comprised six portraits of Bollywood film stars, with a further four images of the auditoria of Mumbai cinema houses. Living in the East End of London, Yass's first awareness of Indian film came via the large Asian community there. In November 2000 she made her first visit to Mumbai where, with the support of the British Council there, she was able to meet and photograph six of the highest profile film stars currently working in the industry: Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Karisma Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt and Madhuri Dixit. Of the six portraits, four were made whilst the actors were on set. The artificiality of the context enabled Yass to go beyond portraiture and to explore the institutional structure which supported the actors, as well as examining notions of identity. The exhibition was accompanied by a bi-lingual (English and Hindi) catalogue, entitled Star with a text by Vikram Chadra that explored the symbiotic relationship between film star and the film fan and illustrations of all ten works in the Star series. ISBN 0 86355 470 9, available from Cornerhouse www.cornerhouse.org