Following an intensive few days of judging in New York, an internationally renowned jury has awarded Tara L. C. Sood the Belmond Photographic Residency 2026. Tara’s winning submission, titled The Great Mandrake Magic Convention, is a photo series celebrating India’s historic art of magic. Shot in nostalgic sites like memorial halls and old single-screen cinemas, it features magicians aged 13 to 75 performing classic illusions such as levitation and escapes, blending staged and documentary photography. The project explores performance and heritage, while also delving into post-colonial themes and the legacy of Indian magic appropriated by the West.
The jury comprised of internationally recognised voices in the photography world, including photographers Tyler Mitchell, Kathy Ryan and Colin Dodgson, writer Kimberley Drew, co-founder of RVB Books Mathieu Charon and Lydia Melamed Johnson, Executive Director of AIPAD.
Tara L. C. Sood is a Franco-Indian photographer and filmmaker based between London, Paris and India. Her work, which is mostly character-driven, often blurs the lines between staged and documentary, with a cinematic point of view. Favouring darkroom handprints, archival elements and the use of a rich colour palette that is telling of her Indian heritage, her personal work searches to create a new way of understanding and discarding tropes of the past. She brings forward the same intrinsically surreal style to her fashion and commercial work.
Sood will receive an all-expenses residency at Belmond’s Villa Sant’ Andrea next year, leading to a print publication with RVB Books, a photography showcase in a major global city, mentorship from Belmond's network of photographic experts and a financial award.
Explore her winning submission below.
