The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998

We were invited to prepare a concept pitch for a new landmark group exhibition of art made in response to India’s changing cultural-political landscape during pivotal years.

Featuring artwork by over 25 Indian artists, this major exhibition is bookended by two transformative events in India’s history: Indira Gandhi’s declaration of a state of emergency in 1975 and the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998. The fraught period between these years was marked by social upheaval, economic collapse, and rapid urbanisation.

Within this turbulence, ordinary life continued, and artists made work that distilled historically significant episodes as well as intimate moments and shared experiences. Across a range of media, the vivid, urgent works on show – about friendship, love, desire, family, religion, violence, caste, community, protest – are deeply personal documents from a period of tremendous change.

This is the first institutional exhibition to cover these definitive years, with many works never before seen in the UK.

Our approach looked to create an sensitive and ethereal intervention in the brutalist exhibition space of the Barbican. Looking at celebrating height in the space, moments of light and shade, solid vs diaphonous partitioning, intimate circulation spaces and moments of transition, depth in colour and texture, and an embellishment of thresholds.

Tags: Culture