What does a place do to you? It could be the neighbourhood you grew up in, the city that shaped how you think, or the places you have visited and loved. These are the coordinates that the new exhibition Cartography of Identity—Multiplicity as a Method focuses on.
The show brings together over 40 artists across generations and practices, all responding to cartography as a way of thinking about identity, memory, history, and imagination. Curator Sharan Apparao has been thinking about the cosmos for years, building exhibitions around infinity and the cosmic dance and the mathematics of the universe. This time, the thread that pulled everything together was more specific: the way temple plans in India were aligned to the planets and the zodiac. From there, the leap to maps and cities and personal journeys felt inevitable for Sharan.
“Every artist has looked at it differently. I’m open-minded enough to see their point of view. And so I did not have to be harsh. Neither did I have to make a selection. Neither did I have to reject anybody,” she says.
Orijit Sen, who worked on the Partition Museum in Punjab, made a cityscape with people and lots of activities. Shijo Jacob did the opposite, painting what those places looked like before the cities came. While Zarina Hashmi and Nasreen Mohamedi, both shaped by migration and displacement, bring a quiet precision to questions of home and belonging.
Other striking pieces include artworks by Urgain Zawa from Ladakh, who made a relief of mountains and monasteries by pressing pepper mash through a jali. Sharvin Jangle, who comes from a fishing community, chose tarpaulin as his canvas and mapped the rhythms of coastal village life onto it. “It’s interesting how artists have chosen materials as well as subjects in something that is their own personal equation and relationship to a place or a journey,” Sharan says.
The one thing Sharan wants the visitors to do is to not arrive with a fixed idea of what they can expect. “You can’t come with a preconceived notion that you’re going to look at a history of cartography. It isn’t. It’s really a creative expression.”
Open to all. On till March 28. Tuesday – Saturday, 3 pm – 6.30 pm. At Apparao Galleries, Nungambakkam.
For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.