Mansha Chhatwal (b.1974, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India) received her Bachelor’s of Applied Arts at Sophia Polytechnic (1994).

Her group shows include Art Loft (2010) Brooklyn Art Gallery (2011); Bartered collections at Mumbai Art Room by Cona Projects (2015); The Winchester Gallery, UK (2015); Reading Room at Saffron Art Gallery, New York (2016); Gallery Espace by Blueprint12 (2019); Blueprint12 (2020); Platform at Blueprint12 (2021); Blueprint12 (2022). Additionally, she has been an artist-in-residence at Sarai Reader 09’; Devi Art Foundation (2013); Reading Room exhibition, Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014); TIFA, Pune (2017).

Mansha’s practice is built around books that have been censored over time. Her work engages with issues of power, identity, memory and loss told through stories of books, writers and libraries. Undertaking the rather forceful acts of blurring, masking, cutting, removing and remoulding iconic books, she moves beyond highlighting the outrage of censorship towards a need to establish channels of meaningful dialogue. With her research based practice, she brings various perspectives to the storytelling. Interactions between subject and material interest her in the way they reveal ever new facets and layers. She likes her work to be immersive, and often employs process art to get immersed in the making herself.

On her own journey to understand this the artist first delves into the stories of libraries that have been attacked. Her research translates into drawings of stories patched together from different sources, leaving space for new ones to come in. There are the larger narratives as to how the burning of a library was a catalyst for a 26 year long civil war, or how the most progressive nation on sexual research and reform was transformed by a fascist government. Equally important are the way in which things happened, and the other stories that played around it. These stories are for the artist and us to immerse in and sift through, so we may begin to know, care and understand.

Mansha lives and works in Mumbai, Maharashtra India.