The new exhibition explores India’s past, present, and future through large-scale, immersive installations by contemporary Indian artists
Entry to students of fine arts, children below the age of 7 and senior citizens will be free. Photo Courtesy: Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre
The Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre is set to present ‘Liminal Gaps’, a contemporary Indian art exhibition exploring the transitional and expanding boundaries of Indian culture and identity. Curated by Mafalda Millies Kahane and Roya Sachs with executive production by Elizabeth Edelman Sachs from TRIADIC, it is the Centre’s first exhibition to exclusively showcase Indian artists.
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The four acclaimed conceptual artists and art groups included in the show are Ayesha Singh, Raqs Media Collective, Asim Waqif, and Afrah Shafiq. ’Liminal Gaps’ will open at the Art House on March 31, 2024 and remain on view through June 9, 2024.
The unique group art show explores transitional spaces and transformational phases that are either physical, emotional or metaphorical. The exhibition is about thresholds, ultimately inviting audiences into new ways of looking at the familiar. Sprawling across all four floors of the Art House – the Cultural Centre’s dedicated visual art space – a multigenerational group of artists explores liminal gaps in architecture, time, space, nature, and technology. The experience is immersive, engaging the visitor through site-specific installations, interactive sonic experiences and video games.
“Liminal Gaps will encourage audiences to further explore Indian culture, inspired by the perspectives of some of the most masterful artists working today,” comments Isha Ambani. “As NMACC approaches its first anniversary, we felt it was important to host an exhibition that exclusively showcases Indian artists and carries on the Centre’s mission to elevate Indian culture on the global stage.”
‘Liminal Gaps’ marks TRIADIC’s second show in the space. Last summer, TRIADIC curated and produced ‘RUN AS SLOW AS YOU CAN,’ a captivating and immersive site-specific art installation by the creative studio TOILETPAPER, led by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari. Other past exhibitions at the Art House include ‘Sangam/Confluence’ and ‘POP: FAME, LOVE AND POWER,’ the first-ever comprehensive exhibition of Pop Art in India.
“We are delighted to return to NMACC with Liminal Gaps after the success of TOILETPAPER: RUN AS SLOW AS YOU CAN,” say the TRIADIC founders. “We are inspired to be working with a group of Indian artists who are thought-provoking, boundary-pushing and masters of their craft. It is also rare to be able to offer an artist an entire floor in a group show, so in many ways, the density of this exhibition feels like four solo shows.”
The first floor presents work by Delhi-based artist Ayesha Singh (b. 1990), who explores how architecture embeds power dynamics, reveals political nuances in nation-building, and shapes identity and behaviour. Singh’s presentation at the Cultural Centre is her largest commission to date. A three-dimensional drawing, Hybrid Drawings (2024) collapses the rules of architecture through the re-imagining of India’s distinctive skylines. Inspired by her experience living in Delhi, a nexus of identities and cultures, her sculpture depicts past, present, and future as dislocated and ephemeral fragments that open and flatten as audiences meander through the gallery.
The second floor invites viewers into a temporal universe created by Raqs Media Collective, the dynamic trifecta of multimedia artists, who’ve worked collaboratively since 1992. They will present five unique works that each meditate on the human experience of time. The central work, Escapement (2008), is a collection of 27 almost identical clocks, each allocated to a city (real or imaginary), with the hands set to their respective time zones. In a twist, the clock faces are marked with emotions rather than hours, underscoring the fragile mechanics of our daily lives. Their installation continues into the staircases with the work Nerves (2018), which acts as the underbelly and passageway from one artist’s space to another.
On the third floor, Asim Waqif (b. 1978) takes an organic and metamorphic approach to liminality through the lens of contemporary urban design. Chaal (2023) is a labour-intensive and handwoven bamboo installation, examining notions of ecology and anthropology. Chaal celebrates Indian craftsmanship and invites viewers in through a sonic symphony of nature triggered by participants’ movements and interactions.
The fourth and final presentation offers an interactive, multimedia experience by Goa-based artist Afrah Shafiq (b. 1989). Sultana’s Reality (2017) explores the relationship between women and the colonial education movement in India using archival imagery, women’s writing, and history. Drawing its title from the 1905 science-fiction short story of feminist utopia, by Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein, the work explores the inner lives of the first generation of women to be educated in pre-independent India. The installation follows an Alice in Wonderland-style adventure, drawing visitors into a liminal space that feels entirely in digital flux, as though one is inside in a computer game.
Performance artist Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979) will also be creating a series of movement-based interventions in the space during the opening and over the course of the show. Fernandes was born in Nairobi, Kenya to a Goan, Indian family, whose multidisciplinary practice examines issues of cultural displacement, migration, labour, queer subjectivity, and collective agency. For ‘Liminal Gaps,’ the artist will be dissecting the concept of the ‘spaces in between,’ by using the installations as his canvas to shift eight performers through the floors of the Art House.
Further complementing the exhibition, the Cultural Centre will offer an array of programming designed to inspire creativity, including morning yoga sessions, evening musical experiences, treasure hunts, and more. As part of the Cultural Centre’s initiative of making art accessible to all – entry to students of fine arts, children below the age of 7 and senior citizens will be free.
Tickets to the exhibit start at INR 299.
Curators: Roya Sachs & Mafalda Millies Kahane
Executive Producer: Elizabeth Edelman Sachs
Creative Producer: Antonia Jolles
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