We spend much of our lives searching for places, people, and experiences that make us feel at home. The Shape of Belonging, the seventh edition of Maisha Studio’s annual exhibition, turns that universal search into an artistic conversation, presenting over 150 works by 15 artists and designers who explore what it means to belong.
Maisha Studio, founded and run by Aishwarya Manivannan, marks its 16th year of operation this year. Each year, she sets her students a single theme to spend months exploring, and this year’s is belonging itself. Not as an abstract idea, but as something genuinely lived. “Home is something that we are all craving for in some way or the other. It can be a person, a place, a feeling, a song, a dog, a book. But what does that mean for different people?” she asks.
That range of questioning shows up in the sheer variety of material on display. Beyond the expected acrylics, water colours, and pen and ink, students have worked in cyanotype, photography, film, and—more strikingly—fishing net, saris, bricks, beads, and lego. “There’s a whole range of media that the students have worked with,” Aishwarya says, and the breadth feels less like novelty for its own sake and more like a genuine search for the right material to hold a difficult idea.
The exhibition also extends well beyond the gallery walls. Visitors can join a functional fitness session from Simple Strong, a silent reading session, and a particularly lovely Sunday session where three single mothers—women who work as house help or run small shops—will teach garland-making, kolam etc.
Underneath all of it sits a conviction Aishwarya has clearly thought hard about. “If we understand what home means to us, what is the shape of our belonging, we will be able to find comfort even in uncomfortable situations.”
On till June 23. 11 am to 7 pm. At Lalit Kala Akademi, Thousand Lights.
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