Exploring the concept of space, LATITUDE 28’s latest venue in Delhi has been re-imagined ‘as a site of dramaturgy, where bodies, materials, light and time unfold in choreographed tension’, mentions curator Satyajit Dave. Titled, Dramaturgies of Space, the inaugural exhibition of the gallery’s new space in the Capital city, only converges the art gallery as an active character in the formation of the narrative which binds the displays together.
Displaying the artworks by contemporary artists the exhibition displays not only a range of different practices but also shows no matter the medium or the specialised practice, the venue and the architecture can be woven in the show as a collaborator. Participating artists include Firi Rahman, Sudipta Das, Salik Ansari, Juhika Bhanjadeo, Chandan Bez Baruah, Waswo X Waswo and Riyas Komu.
Dave mentions, “The idea of space as performance has been central to performance theory, particularly in the work of Erika Fischer-Lichte, who reminds us that performance is transformative precisely because it places the spectator inside the act rather than outside it. The visitor in this exhibition is not passive. They cross thresholds, voids, and suspensions, walking beneath Sudipta’s fragile paper figures cascading from above, detouring around Chandan’s carved landscapes, or pausing before Firi’s ecological drawings unfurling across the walls, confronting Komu’s politically charged figuration that transforms the gallery into a site of dialogue and dissent. The gallery itself performs. Its false partitions, beams, and windows fold into the dramaturgy, creating an environment where architecture and artwork together choreograph how we move and feel.”
By displaying artworks that in its core talk about South Asian values and themes, the visitor traverses through symbolic ideologies like migration, hybridity, myth, and ecology. With the idea of the visitor being a part of the exhibition which is perceived as a performance rather than just a display, the entire experience is curated to be a memorable interaction not just where the exhibits and the space don’t exist as two different entities, but one.
The Dramaturgies of Space is also a celebration point which marks LATITUDE 28’s commitment to upholding artistic voices for the past 15 years since its foundation in 2010 by Bhavna Kakar. With a new venue, it only expands the commitment by now being able to accommodate more artists and exhibitions. Bhavna recollects, “Opening this new space in Defence Colony feels like coming full circle. LATITUDE 28 began with a vision to create a platform where ideas could grow freely, where experimentation, dialogue, and care could define how we experience art. Fifteen years later, this new chapter is both a culmination of that journey and the beginning of something more expansive. Dramaturgies of Space' captures precisely what this moment means to me; it’s an exhibition that turns the gallery into a living, breathing organism, one that performs and responds.”