THE FUTURE OF IMAGINATION: Curated by Saloni Doshi
Featured Artists
The world has reached an inflection point. Storms and climate change ravage lands far and wide. Political extremes are seizing their growing momentum. Russia’s war in Ukraine unveiled an ongoing global power struggle that has brought war back to Europe. We are at a crucial moment where the future is hidden while fundamental changes are on the horizon. In the midst of election in our own country , where our Prime Minister stands for his third term, there is a lot of talk around, redevelopment, building of the nation, use of local goods and material- Make in India and the grand India Story.
Departing from India’s hinterland and its history of forced migration, the exhibition sounds subdued voices that become songs of resistance and resilience. It addresses Earth’s ecological disasters while imagining a new utopia, where mythology merges into an alternative garden of Eden. Exhausted landscapes bear witness to human violence—from extractive economies to the harsh realities of war—while carrying seeds of a new beginning. Amidst these overwhelming circumstances, the fragility of the individual is blossoming yet at risk. Its shadow is cast by touches, movement of nuanced lines as a part of unspoken verse, scenes of normality that question reality. They all converge into a possibility of acceptance.
The significant commitment to the concepts of the archive, the document, the memory trace and the memories of bodies will highlight their potential as a repertoire of languages from which artists draw to question the univocity of dominant narratives. Their rearrangement of collective and individual memories in contemporary stories aims to restore the voice of the Other, the memory of other knowledge, to explore their imaginations and to shed light on the issues that affect the ongoing mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization. How can we express ourselves in our own terms and be the subject of our history within societies where certain communities have been stripped of their territories, their languages, their cultures or their humanity? Linking the issue of collective struggles to that of self-formation, the artists will offer critical reflection often inspired by the concepts of hybridization, infiltration, fluidity, fugitivity. They will create emancipatory images of new narratives of life, thus highlighting personal stories and collective stories that are invisible, minimized, marginalized or erased.
Can many struggles become the joint creation of a better future? Can empathy offer ways of common being in a space of conflicting memories? Can we imagine tomorrow? Do we have the courage to dream? Can we forget our past and its shame or glory?