Amar Kanwar

For over thirty years, New Delhi-based artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar has built a body of lyrical films and multi-channel video installations that sit between documentary, travelogue and visual essay. At Serpentine North, his major solo exhibition takes the form of a site-specific installation in which new and existing works turn the galleries into a meditative environment of image and sound.

Kanwar's practice is rooted in the history of the Indian subcontinent. Often drawing on lived experience, he examines the lasting legacies of decolonisation and of the 1947 Partition, which gave rise to India, Pakistan and, later, Bangladesh. His films bear witness to social upheaval and displacement, to power, violence and arrogance, as well as to justice and memory. By confronting the past to better understand the urgencies of the present, they bring to light what connects us beyond geography and context.

In the darkened galleries, visitors encounter a trilogy of films: the feature-length Such a Morning (2017), the multi-screen installation The Peacock's Graveyard (2023) and The Charcoal Man (2026), a new seven-screen installation premiering at Serpentine.

The exhibition is curated by Chris Bayley, Exhibitions Curator, with Kit Gurnos, Assistant Exhibitions Curator, in close collaboration with the artist.