A digital online platform for Indian and South Asian contemporary photographic and writing practices, PIX was co-founded by curator and publisher Rahaab Allana and writer Nandita Jaishankar in 2010. Through its quarterly issues, archival work and scholarly writing, the publication examines contemporary photography as it relates to itself, its subjects and to other artistic disciplines. It aims to show photography as a dynamic and adaptive practice by viewing and presenting it through a historic and thematic lens, as well as by approaching it in a personal, contemplative and aesthetically conscious manner. Each issue has a thematic concern and features contributor content including lens-based work, photo essays, articles, essays, interviews and texts. The quarterly released its first issue, Suburbia, in 2011, accompanied by an exhibition at the Siddartha Hall, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi.

As part of its ongoing interrogation of exhibitionary practices and their influence on the perception of the photographic domain, PIX organises and curates exhibitions to accompany select issues. Incorporating both text and images, these exhibitions serve to provide an immersive experience of key themes and works presented in the corresponding digital versions. The platform has also actively engaged, through its publication and curatorial projects, with issues and themes such as ecology; urban and city spaces; public and private institutions and their roles in arts education and training; ethics of image-making, the individual and the community; and diaspora and identity, among others. In 2018, PIX was a part of a collaborative exhibition titled Ellipses: Between The Word and Image. The three-part show explored the continuities and contrasts between the past and present and fiction and rhetoric through the featured writing and images, photographic collections and photo-sculptural works of PIX, Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II archives and Nandan Ghiya, respectively. The quarterly has also presented exclusive features on Myanmar, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Sri Lanka, highlighting the historical and contemporary photographic practices of the regions.

Its short-format section, PIX Posts, carries interviews, articles and critical commentary on the photography of and in South Asia. PIX Publishing, the publishing division of the initiative, released Lukas Birk and Sean Foley’s book Photo Peshawar in 2018, along with Mapin Publishing. This book highlights the culture of photography in Peshawar, Pakistan, from the 1940s to the present day. It is the first of a proposed series of books on the region’s lesser-known photographic histories and practices.