Prabhakar Pachpute | Lone Runner’s Laboratory

Experimenter presents Lone Runner’s Laboratory, Prabhakar Pachpute’s first solo exhibition at Experimenter – Colaba, Mumbai and fourth solo with the gallery.

For more than a decade, Pachpute has critically examined the impact of mining on both the environment and human lives. What began as a study of altered natural and industrial landscapes has deepened into an exploration of the inner worlds of those most affected.

Lone Runner’s Laboratory marks a pivotal moment in Pachpute’s practice, emerging after a prolonged pause of close reflection on the characters who have informed his panoramic landscapes over the years. Shaped through introspection while assimilating finding of all the visits to mines; mining and agricultural museums; farms and barren landscapes; farmers’ protests, rallies, and demonstrations; sustained conversations with miners and farmers, he turns to their afterlives, tracing moments of rumination and respite while engaging with the psychological and social dimensions of labour and systemic abuse. His characters are no longer restricted to occupying farms and mines; they also inhabit diverse industrial and urban spaces, surrounded by human desires and their forced interventions.

The first iteration of Pachpute’s Lone Runner’s Laboratory will bring together a new body of sculptures, and paintings. Building on his earlier engagement with the wild, he introduces new characters, accompanied by echoes of thinkers and writers who have explored emotional terrains shaped by vulnerability and constraint. Pachpute draws inspiration from George Orwell’s struggle in “Shooting an Elephant” (1936), which was not a confrontation with an enemy, but with forces and responsibilities he never anticipated facing. He also alludes to Franz Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, from The Metamorphosis (1915), who becomes both the cavern he has carved for himself and the one shaped by his surroundings.

The exhibition unfolds as a series of anecdotes that move through the alcoves of the conscious and subconscious, posing significant questions: what does it mean to inhabit dark nests while still searching for a ray of hope; how does one retain instincts of warmth and care, even when they may not serve one’s own interests; what forms of resistance can be embraced as personal virtues; and what kinds of shields must be forged to allow our lands to bloom.

Prabhakar Pachpute lives and works in Pune, India. Select solo and group exhibitions include Lone Runner’s Laboratory, Experimenter – Colaba, Mumbai (2026); Folkstone Triennale (2025); Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Poland (2025); 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2022); among others.

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

* denotes required fields

We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.

Prabhakar Pachpute | Lone Runner’s Laboratory

Cookie preferences

Prabhakar Pachpute | Lone Runner's Laboratory

Please check your email