Anita read English Literature from Delhi University and Visual Merchandising from La Salle, Singapore before she decided to become a photographer in 1996. Her photographic praxis has since been a constant endeavor to find meaning in the relations with the people in her life and their identities as people, ideas or communities. As a result she has closely followed the lives of socially marginalized and excluded groups and communities — abandoned widows, people with intellectual disability, addictions, HIV and AIDS, political minorities, sexual and gender minorities.

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Khemka’s work dealing with alternative sexuality was made into a German film Between the Lines – India’s Third Gender in 2005. It premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2005 and was a winner in all the categories at the River to River Film Festival, Florence in 2005. It also won awards at various festivals such as TLGFF Torino 2005, Max Ophüls Film Festival 2006, CGLFF Copenhagen 2006 amongst others. Her project, Sweet Sixteen (2006), portraits of sixteen-year-olds is included in a book, IMAGINING OURSELVES: Global Voices from a New Generation of Women. The series, Self-Portraits has been included in a group exhibition, Watching Me, Watching India at the Fotografie Forum International, Frankfurt (2006), in the Photoquai Biennale at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris (2007), The Self and The Other – Portraiture in Contemporary Indian Photography for the Palau de la Virrenina and Artium in Spain, Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 years of photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh at White Chapel, London (2009).

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For 15 years, Anita has worked with various UN agencies and International NGOs to document their projects and programs across India and South Asia. She has extensively documented projects related to education, the girl child, MMR & IMR (maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate), water, sanitation, health, sexual and reproductive health amongst others. Her documentation on people living with HIV/AIDS for UNAIDS was the first nationwide attempt at creating such a visual archive on the issue and contributed hugely in reducing the stigma associated with living with HIV/AIDS.

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With her latest works, she has collaborated with her partner Imran Kokiloo. Kashmir (2016—on going) has seen a shift in her approach to include written text, found images, sounds and alternative image techniques to represent what she best believes to be her visceral convolutions to her introduction to Kashmir through her partner. A part of this work has since been exhibited at the 2018 edition of FotoFest International in Houston. The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in Shared Solitude (2020—on going), a series of family portraits removed from both the studio as well as the familiar surroundings of home.

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Khemka headed the photography department at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication (SACAC) from August 2015 until February 2019 and is currently engaged with The MurthyNAYAK Foundation to work on their website PhotoSouthAsia which will come live in early 2021.

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Anita Khemka lives in New Delhi and is represented by PHOTOINK.