Everybody’s Elsewhere | An exhibition celebrating Multiplicities and Elsewheres | Ether Project
| Navigating Multiplicities, the Bizarre and Everybody’s Elsewheres |
| It feels like it was only yesterday when I was sending out missives about our world being in unchartered territories, adjusting to new normals – of the loss of loved ones, distancing during the pandemic, isolation et al. At the lag end of the pandemic and lockdowns there was some hope, hope of us doing better, of us reintegrating with a world that’s softer, more empathic and inclusive – a more expansive world. What we walked into instead, was a ginormous slice of more Bizarre. The post apocalyptic fiction has now moved to current affairs! Doesn’t it increasingly feel like we slipped through a wormhole into some kind of a strange parallel universe of the topsy turvy? As someone very intelligent once wrote, perhaps in some sense what we consider reality is in fact the strangest piece of fiction we will all ever live to know. Amidst the unnerving imagery of doom and gloom, and a looming sense of powerlessness as we collectively watch so many worlds fade, I often find myself grateful for the emergence of communities that have risen to the occasion and continue to come together bringing change in whatever big and small ways they can – by challenging the status quo, with radical compassion, through resistance, in art, by showing up, bearing witness, and holding space for self and others. While in the face of overwhelm every day teaches us new lessons in shared connection, staying grounded and being aware, if we could in our own unique ways approach each day with more gratitude, mindfulness, kindness, and being a little better than we were yesterday, we could just be able to create small pockets of change and serenity in our immediate spaces. And maybe, just maybe these could then cascade into a larger collective force to be reckoned with. One step at a time in the direction of a world we want to live in. One can keep hoping, right!? |
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| Everybody’s Elsewhere |
| Speaking of communities, I recently had the pleasure of showing my work with Ether Project in a new city to an immensely appreciative audience in a beautiful heritage building. Curated by Yash Vikram, the show “Everybody’s Elsewhere” explores how artistic communities across India and beyond survive, adapt, and flourish outside the bounds of institutional support. At its core is a simple yet enduring question: what sustains the artists, as people, when the structures around them falter? The exhibition takes community not as a static condition but as an evolving, living practice. Here, community is sustained through gestures of care, teaching, remembering, and listening, whether among artists themselves or by looking outward to other worlds: microscopic organisms, women’s collectives, or tribal practices. These serve as mirrors and metaphors for artistic kinship and ways of holding each other and imagining together. Bringing together works of Abela Ruben, Aditya Chadar, Akhilesh, Asma Kazi, Élodie Alexandre, Meet Varvada, Purnima Yaduvanshi and Vaishali Oak. These practices trace fragile yet resilient ecologies— residencies, friendships, collaborations, kinships—that sustain artists and their work. Everybody’s Elsewhere proposes community not as a fixed entity, but as a constantly remade promise of trust, solidarity, and shared imagination |
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Some Art from Everybody’s Elsewhere |
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| These are a few of the many exciting works that were part of the show at the Devlalikar Kala Veethika in Indore, India. The complete catalogue is available to view with Ether Project,. Let me know if you’d like a copy! That’s all from me. I hope you find your axis of calm, things that light you up, and many days of immense satisfaction. You stay well! |