At the centre of Vikrant Bhise’s (b.1984) practice lies the ubiquitous presence of casteism which is entrenched in the social, economic, and political rubric of the nation and its intersectional implications on the movement for land, liberty, and labour. The indefatigable spirit of resistance demonstrated by Dr B.R. Ambedkar, Jyotirao Phule, Savitribai Phule and other anti-caste leaders to uphold the constitutional rights for caste-oppressed communities anchor the core values of Bhise’s works. Through large-scale figurative paintings, Bhise portrays the archival memory of the Ambedkarite movement, personal and intergenerational lived experiences and the daily struggles shaped by caste-based discrimination.

For much of the past decade, Christopher Kulendran Thomas (b. 1979) has been using advanced technologies across multiple disciplines to question the myths of Western individualism. His paintings metabolize the colonial art history that came to dominate in Sri Lanka after his family, who are Tamil, left escalating ethnic violence there. Kulendran Thomas often exhibits these paintings with video installations that fuse propaganda and counterpropaganda into a speculative vortex of alternate histories.

Ayesha Sultana’s graphite drawings signify a delicate yet intriguing dissonance between appearance and reality, revelation and ambiguity—through configurations and arrangements of geometric shapes and spatial structures, in a frame-by-frame progression of image and time. On closer viewing, the smooth surface of the paper is dark but reflective, nestled within it lies an intricate mesh of frictions and ruptures which animate the tactile surface resembling the texture of metal; thus underscoring the mineral attributes of graphite. This also refers to an element of three-dimensionality produced by the dialogue between the versatile malleability of paper and the austere physicality of graphite.

Julien Segard (b. 1980; Marseille, France) carefully considers the urban environment, the crevices where the constructed meets the natural, and how the two become inseparable. His works feature an assemblage of found elements and architectural structures that exist because of humans, but are bereft of human presence. The intimate, symbiotic, and oftentimes destructive relationship between man, nature and architecture become points of introspection for Segard in his works. Rooted in experiences of solitude and silence, Segard’s practice immerses the viewer in the minuteness of their elements while simultaneously operating as the entry points into vast infinite spaces.

Rathin Barman’s (b. 1981, Tripura, India) examines the nuances of the modern built environment as a tool for understanding socio-political history. Architecture is characteristically perceived as a fixed entity, central to validating history yet simultaneously existing outside it. To Barman, however, architectural form has also served as an anthropological tool, in building a collective recollection of a place and its people. For over a decade, Barman, trained as an engineer and then a sculptor, has been working on understanding urban sprawl and how the built environment and architecture adapt itself to a growing influx of people over extended periods of time. He sculpts with the materials of modern construction: wood, concrete, rebar, silicon, and firebrick, often in combination. Barman also references architectural renderings, in-depth interviews, photographs, and anecdotal reconstructions in his practice.

Sahil Naik’s (b. 1991) Fever Dream explores fragments of murals that adorn colonial and religious architecture across Goa, Gujarat, the Malabar, Macau, and Manila. These images of distant landscapes, flora, and fauna were executed by those who never travelled, but constructed these based on stories and verbal descriptions. Not essentially accurate, but imaginative and localized, including extracts from the 17th century murals from the convent of Santa Monica in Old Goa. Naik is interested in the transplanting of image, architecture and natural history and the situational ‘new’ this contamination produces. Here the ananas (pineapple) and the breadfruit sit aside cashew and the African doum palm, all of which also made their way as embroidered motifs on albs worn by priests and other religious textiles.