Tenzing Dakpa: The Hotel

A deeply personal photobook portrait of a family hotel on the India/Tibet border

The hotel in this book is both real and metaphorical, an actual establishment run by Indian photographer Tenzing Dakpa's (born 1985) parents in Sikkim, Northeast India, and a prism through which he revisits his family history and place within it.

Dakpa's photos reveal the physical spaces of the hotel, its guest rooms, dining room, the family's cat on a flight of stairs; as well as signs of daily working life there: sheets hanging out to dry, clipping plants in the garden, his parents engaged in various tasks. For the hotel is both public and private, a business and a home: a transient place for guests who come and go and a residence that holds the memories of its owners and projects their hopes.

The Hotel is the winner of the Singapore International Photography Festival Photobook Award 2018.