Celebrating the Holi Festival of Colors

While Holi is widely known as the festival of colors, celebrants traditionally wear white garments. At the end of a long day of throwing colors, these clothes evolve into festive palettes of hues from the whole rainbow.

Hélène Vallée

artist website

While she first began as a painter, Hélène soon found her artistic voice in photography. Working as a freelance photographer she became a contributor of iStock by Getty Images in 2005 and, later on, a member of its Content team. She then founded her own photography company, Instants.

Holi

Holi (Sanskrit: होली Holī) is a Hindu spring festival that is celebrated across the Indian subcontinent and by the greater South Asian diaspora across the world. Aside from being the festival of colors, Holi is a time to celebrate unbridled joy, love, and the triumph of good over evil. Through visual art, this installation highlights some of the spirit and traditions associated with Holi such as throwing colored powdered and spraying colored water through pichkari at friends and family and poojas (religious ceremonies).

This collection is the result of generous donations from the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, the MGH Department of Dermatology, and the MGH Employee Resource Group Leaders Group.