In Gurugram, a city that has grown at speed over what was once forest and farmland, Wild Grass at Eikowa Contemporary begins with a simple but pointed question: what happens to the idea of the village when its physical traces recede?
Curated by Yash Vikram, the exhibition brings together Bhuri Bai, Hiren Patel, Mukesh Sah, Vaishali Oak and Xewali Deka, each working from distinct geographies and lived experience. The result is a show that sidesteps familiar tropes. “It became important not to reduce our villages to regressive societies or romanticise them as pure,” Vikram says. That position anchors the exhibition, keeping it attentive to complexity rather than sentiment.
The works move across mediums and registers, from painting to textile and mixed media, yet remain grounded in specific contexts. Bhuri Bai’s practice, rooted in Bhil traditions, carries forward inherited forms while allowing them to shift. Her images hold stories of community and movement, suggesting how older visual languages respond to changing conditions.
Mukesh Sah’s work draws from the Himalayan landscape where he grew up, shaped by forests and terrain that now face environmental strain. His images register these pressures without spectacle. Vikram points to “the struggles that follow due to changes in weather patterns and global warming”, a thread that runs quietly through Sah’s practice.
Material and surface take on particular weight in Vaishali Oak’s textile works. Trained as a painter, she approaches fabric with a similar sensibility, building layered compositions that feel marked by exposure and time. The works carry an awareness of climate and erosion, without turning illustrative.
Xewali Deka’s practice turns to labour and visibility. Based in Assam and working as both artist and farmer, she focuses on rural ecologies and the people who sustain them. Her work draws attention to what often goes unacknowledged. As Vikram notes, she “shares the struggles of female farmers, which mostly go unnoticed”.
In contrast, Hiren Patel’s work considers how technology reshapes agricultural life in Gujarat. His images reflect a landscape where digital tools and infrastructure are increasingly present. Vikram describes this as “how digitalisation and advances in technology are shaping Gujarat’s agricultural infrastructure”, shifting the narrative away from stasis towards adaptation.
The exhibition’s setting sharpens these concerns. For Vaishnavi Murali, founder of Eikowa Contemporary, Gurugram itself is part of the story. “What is now a dense, rapidly urbanised city was once largely forested and rural in character,” she says. “Today, that memory has almost entirely disappeared.” The title Wild Grass gestures towards that absence, invoking what once existed without formal planning or control.
Murali frames the exhibition as a pause within the city’s pace. “It invites viewers to pause within a hyper-urban setting and reconsider the layers of land, memory, and ecology that lie beneath it.” That invitation feels measured rather than rhetorical, extending through the works on view.
There is no single narrative here, and the exhibition does not attempt to construct one. Instead, it presents the village as a shifting ground shaped by migration, climate and infrastructure, as well as by memory and practice. Across the five artists, rural India appears neither fixed nor fading, but continually reworked through lived experience.
What: Wild Grass
Where: Eikowa Art Gallery, DLF Phase 1, Gurugram
Timing: 5–8 pm
Exhibition Dates: Till April 18, 2026
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