India returns to Venice Biennale via journeys linking past with its future

While PPP are not new to Indian cultural initiatives, this edition is more formally organised, with a joint task force bringing together the ministry, NMACC and the Serendipity Arts Foundation

Home has always been an emotive idea, tethered to memory and identity. But in a world increasingly marked by conflict, displacement and migration, one question resonates across geographies: Where does one belong, and what constitutes home? The answer is far from settled. It is this shifting terrain that the Pavilion of India seeks to navigate at the Venice Biennale as the country returns to the influential global art stage after seven years.

 

Titled “Geographies of Distance: Remembering Home”, the pavilion is India’s response to the biennale’s overarching theme, “In Minor Keys”, which was conceived by the late Cameroonian-Swiss curator, Koyo Kouoh, and which carries a message for introspection, subtlety and emotional resonance rather than spectacle.

 

More than intellectual, the theme is autobiographical for Amin Jaffer, curator of the India pavilion. “For me, the question of ‘Where is home?’ has always been central,” he says. Born into a Kutchi Gujarati family in central Africa and having lived across continents, Jaffer’s own life has been shaped by distance and return. Despite not growing up in India, he retained its languages, food and traditions through his family. When he first arrived in the country as a young adult, the sense of familiarity was immediate. Home is more than a place, he realised; it’s something you carry within.

 

Two factors, Jaffer says, make the theme particularly relevant today. The first is the rapid transformation of India itself, with cities expanding, neighbourhoods being rebuilt, landscapes getting altered by economic growth and technological changes. “When you return to places after 20 or 30 years, they are often unrecognisable,” he says. The second is the increasing visibility of the Indian diaspora, which, despite its global spread, continues to maintain deep connections to language, cultures and traditions — the way his family did. 

  (Clockwise from extreme left) Delhi-based artist Sumakshi Singh recreating her grandparents’ home through threads; Skarma Sonam Tashi from Ladakh, who works with earth and papier-mache; and Ranjani Shettar’s sculptural works that transform natural materials into organic floral forms  

 

Material and memory

 

First inaugurated in 1895, the Venice Biennale remains the oldest and most influential art fair of its kind. It’s a sprawling cultural event that, during its preview week alone, will see around 120 exhibitions open across the city. 

 

“Among other things, the motivation to return to the biennale, which will run from May 9 to November 22, is rooted in the emergence of India’s contemporary landscape and the greater need to provide our artists with a global stage,” says Vivek Aggarwal, secretary, Ministry of Culture, which is presenting the pavilion in partnership with the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre and the Serendipity Arts Foundation. The biennale’s international audience, which includes curators, collectors and institutions, offers precisely the kind of exposure India’s artists merit, says Aggarwal, whose office at Kartavya Bhavan 2 in New Delhi is sprinkled with artworks – from Madhubanis to Kalamkaris, besides contemporary canvases and sculptures.

 

The return, Jaffer adds, is significant because the Venice Biennale remains the most important platform of its kind. With its structure of national pavilions, it functions almost like a world exposition of contemporary art, where countries articulate their cultural identity on a global stage.

 

India will present that identity through material — textures and substances of everyday life. 

 

Soil, terracotta, textiles, bamboo and papier-mache form the ore vocabulary of the exhibition. “The idea was to represent India through its materials as much as through its artists,” says Aggarwal.

 

In a contemporary art world, the pavilion turns to indigenous materiality, grounding its works in traditions that blur the boundaries between art, craft and labour. “We wanted to move beyond the beauty of the objects to also highlight the beauty and significance of materials and their uses,” says Aggarwal.

 

The five artists who will showcase their creations at the India pavilion reflect both this material focus and the thematic exploration of home. 

 

Delhi-based Sumakshi Singh anchors the pavilion with what Jaffer describes as an “extraordinary thread house”. It is a painstaking reconstruction of her grandparents’ home through embroidery. The original structure no longer exists. Her work is a fragile, stitched evocation of its memory. “It is an act of reclaiming childhood and preserving emotional space,” he says.

 

Alwar Balasubramaniam (Bala) works with soil and clay from Tamil Nadu, creating a dialogue between the natural world and the landscape surrounding his home. Skarma Sonam Tashi uses earth and papier-mache to reflect on the transformation of Himalayan communities in his homeland, Ladakh, where traditional, sustainable ways of living are giving way to modern constructions and technologies. Ranjani Shettar’s gravity-defying sculptural works transform natural materials into organic floral forms as the artist from Karnataka engages with waste to explore hidden possibilities in an ode to circular economy. 

 

All four of them draw on that anchor called the home that once was. The fifth artist, Asim Waqif, looks to the future, a sustainable one though, through monumental bamboo installation — scaffoldings that evoke construction, transition and the restless energy of a nation in flux.

 

Together, these artistic practices map a geography that stretches across India, capturing its diversity. “India is not a singular identity. It is a subcontinent of multiple geographies, cultures and artistic traditions,” says Jaffer. Hence, rather than a singular statement, the pavilion is a constellation of perspectives.

 

Located on the waterfront at the Arsenale, which used to be the largest production centre in Venice during the pre-industrial era, the India pavilion spans 5,000-6,000 square feet. Aggarwal offers a verbal tour of it: Visitors enter through Bala’s terracotta work, “which grounds them immediately in the material language of the exhibition.”. On one side, Singh’s embroidered “home” offers an intimate anchor, and on the other, Shettar’s garden-like installation complements it. The mezzanine level carries Tashi’s Ladakh-inspired landscape, while the rear is dominated by Waqif’s bamboo scaffolding, offering a counterpoint.

 

“Home, growth, tradition and transformation exist simultaneously,” says Aggarwal, adding that the installations have been curated to interact, creating what he describes as “layered conversations” about modern Indian society — its past, its present, and its possible future.

 

The partnerships

 

What distinguishes this year’s effort is also the structure behind it. While public-private partnerships are not new to Indian cultural initiatives, this edition is more formally organised, with a joint task force bringing together the ministry, Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre and the Serendipity Arts Foundation. 

 

This collective approach extends beyond the pavilion. Over the six months of the biennale, a parallel programme of performances, including poetry, music, dance and literature, will take place across Venice. “This will be six months of India in Venice,” Aggarwal says. While spatial constraints mean these events will not be housed within the pavilion, they form an integral part of its conceptual framework, reflecting the interconnectedness of India’s visual, oral and performative traditions.

 

The scale of the undertaking is considerable. Given how large the installations are, they are being built on site by the five artists who have just about two weeks to complete them before the biennale begins. Aggarwal says transporting materials for the installations was a challenge, given the global disruptions, but it was done.

 

“This is, above all, an emotional exhibition,” Jaffer says. It invites viewers to reflect not only on India, but on themselves; on their own memories, their own migrations, and their own shifting sense of home.