India 2026

Title: Geographies of Distance: remembering home
Commissioner: National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA)
Curator: Amin Jaffer
Exhibitors: Alwar Balasubramaniam (Bala), Sumakshi Singh, Ranjani Shettar, Asim Waqif and Skarma Sonam Tashi

“Geographies of Distance: remembering home” is a group exhibition featuring five artists who explore the concept of home amidst economic growth and global migration. The exhibition examines home not as a fixed geographic location, but as a portable condition shaped by memory, ritual, and personal mythology.

The participating artists — Alwar Balasubramaniam (Bala), Sumakshi Singh, Ranjani Shettar, Asim Waqif, and Skarma Sonam Tashi — utilise organic materials traditional to India to evoke emotional connections to their origins. Their works address themes of transformation and fragility: installations made from soil and clay, ethereal thread embroideries that turn memory into architecture, gravity-defying sculptures based on ancient craft, and structures repurposed from discarded materials.

Responding to the Biennale’s theme, “In Minor Keys”, the pavilion avoids spectacle in favour of ephemeral interventions involving music, movement, and poetry that dissolve into the city’s daily rhythm. By highlighting the experiences of a mobile population and a vocal global diaspora, the exhibition considers how sense of place persists when familiar physical spaces undergo rapid change.