Sarmaya - The Museum Without Boundaries

Spotlight

Shifting Selves

Between meaning, mythology & mirage

Something beautiful and bizarre starts to happens when you place disparate works of art and history next to each other. Like a creeper putting out tendrils to investigate higher ground, these objects begin to reach out and whisper to each other. Connections crackles across mediums, styles and eras. Universal themes shine through like iridescent threads.... Read more »

Dive Right In

Categories: Spotlight

Whose land is it anyway?

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Zarina Hashmi and the idea of home

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Reading between the lines

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To the earth we return

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Anju Acharya and the circle of life

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Mayank Shyam and the forest of Gond

Categories: Reads

Sarmaya X TARQ: In conversation with Hena Kapadia

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'majha' by Gaurav Ogale x Farah Mulla

Categories: Spotlight

Where do we go from here?

#SarmayaStars

Wild Things

Created using oil paint and 22 ¾ gold leaf on Gesso panels, Jethro Buck’s painting ‘Wild Things’ borrows and meshes together a potpourri of images from across the global landscape – from pastoral England to Mughal India. This miniature style painting teases a range of dynamic figures – animal and human – who go about... Read more »

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Paul Abraham, founder of Sarmaya, shows us some of his favourite coins dating to the rule of the powerful Vijayanagara kings and the Nayaka dynasty that succeeded them. Did you know that there were four different dynasties that constituted the larger Vijayanagara empire? Encounter a brief history of southern India through these beautiful medieval coins from the Sarmaya collection.

#Numismatics #Vijayanagara #Nayaka #Karnataka

Collector's Edition: Rare Coins of Vijayanagara & Nayaka empires

YouTube Video VVVXRXluMDU2cjJybHJZM2FJbGZyTUlBLjgzbVdFY3hLV0l3

Sarmaya founder Paul Abraham introduces us to a gem from the collection: a rare 19th-century album of #ethnographic photographs. 'People of India' was a lengthy eight-folio volume edition consisting of 468 images from the Indian subcontinent, aimed to document the races and tribes of 'Hindustan'. The publication's first volume was issued in 1868, compiled by JW Kaye and J Forbes Watson at the behest of Governor-General Lord Canning (1856-62). Around 15 photographers and 18 authors contributed to this project. Over years, Paul has painstakingly collected this work in bits and pieces--some albums have been found in-tact, others are in loose photographs.

#RarePhotos #IndianHistory #19thCenturyIndia

Collector's Edition: 'People of India', 1868-1875

YouTube Video VVVXRXluMDU2cjJybHJZM2FJbGZyTUlBLkhrUTNoZVhrdXNz

Shifting Selves - On collaboration between the gallery and the museum

YouTube Video VVVXRXluMDU2cjJybHJZM2FJbGZyTUlBLjY3NWNkVUZCQ0pV

The colours of Gond art, the figures of ancient Egypt and the stories of Greek mythology flower organically on Rithika Merchant's canvas and demand a closer re-reading. More here: https://sarmaya.in/spotlight/mining-mythology-the-art-of-rithika-merchant/

#ContemporaryArt #Mythology #IndianArt

Shifting Selves | Rithika Merchant | Sarmaya x Tarq

YouTube Video VVVXRXluMDU2cjJybHJZM2FJbGZyTUlBLmlIT2kzTE1LUHp3

Walking the path of the historian, archivist and craftsman, Saju Kunhan creates room for cultures, centuries and civilisations to constantly collide and create new meanings. Read more here: https://sarmaya.in/spotlight/mapping-mirages-the-art-of-saju-kunhan/

Shifting Selves | Saju Kunhan | Sarmaya x Tarq

YouTube Video VVVXRXluMDU2cjJybHJZM2FJbGZyTUlBLjFYd2h0VTBHWVg4

majha, 2021
/माझा mine मेरा/

audio-visual mix media installation by Gaurav Ogale X Farah Mulla © Sarmaya Arts Foundation

Is land an emotional space? How do we mark boundaries to an idea that exists only in our mind? If emotions, memories and affection define our land, then how much of it is solely ours and how much of ownership is shared? As I move homes and cities, many windows have always been my recluse.

......

gulaab,
Ogalewadi circa late 1990s

I would often have to raise my toes to see the world of roses my abba (grandfather) had created. The window of Amma's (grandmother) room overlooked this poetic garden. Since I could never see the whole garden from the room, I often tricked myself to believe in a dream beyond the window. Amidst the scent of the blooming roses, I dreamt of growing older, of freedom.
The last time I visited our house, over fifteen years ago, crippled cacti had taken over this window from inside. I did not inherit that home, rather no one did. But through the crippled cacti, I could still see the world I never really saw but believed was mine. I thought of myself as the king of this fragrant undiscovered world.

sridhar,
Ogalewadi circa late 1990s

My grandfather’s room was an oasis of dreams. Where the window became a bystander, standing adjacent to the world’s most beautiful mirrored cupboard in the corner. This eight mirrored cupboard had travelled with my great grandparents all the way from Bangalore in the early 1900s. The reflections on its mirrors became my window to the world that my grandfather created for me. A world adorned with Monet’s garden and patterns created by my hands. Where I could see all sorts of strange insects and dragonflies hovering inside a macchardani, perenially placed on the raised bed.
When my amma and abba left that home, they carried the cupboard with them to Poona. I don’t know if I will ever get a chance to live in that house, all I want is to cherish the mirror cupboard. It might be empty now but it has treasured and witnessed so much over the years - especially my conversations with my abba – who always addressed me as Sridhar and never as Gaurav.

MHADA,
Bombay, circa 2014

Before I moved to a house with bigger and broader windows - windows that could breathe, I lived in a few cramped up buildings around Bombay, locally called MHADA. The only view one had was of someone else's home, a peek into their world, their struggles, their intimate moments and secrets.
Every morning my window created a cinematic frame for me. I woke up to the sound of her pressure cooker, yet I never saw her face. She would pull together strands of her oiled hair, then part them and make place for a little rose - the only bright thing in her otherwise pale, slow-paced world. This was probably the only time of the day she got for herself. For me, it was like watching the same film every day.
One day she disappeared. The window had someone else's clothes, someone else's secrets.

c/o Bombay,
Bombay, circa 2015

Bombay is home, but I have never owned a home here. My existence here has been anonymous, between leases that keep renewing. From some homes, one sees faint lines of the robust waves while some have a closer, almost a cake in a colour palette kind of a sea view. When I think of my own place in Bombay, I rarely think of the cramped up drawing-room, the kitchen where I spend a lot of my time, or the balcony that witnesses all kinds of eerie sounds. For me, my Bombay is my part of the Arabian sea - as if the city inhabited underwater, inside conches, echoing familiar soundscapes. The expanse of the city in my visual memory is finite, it is big enough to engulf my dreams and at the same time, it fits into the glass jar that sits calmly on my window sill.

parda,
Poona, circa 2020

There are days when the window becomes a wall, a cocoon. On days like this, I feel like I want to be away from the world, away from the noise and find solace in myself, my body and my gestures. The four walls seem thicker, cobwebs emerge and time stands still. All the curtains are drawn, leaving just a little bit of an opening for the light to dance around. With my little niece, I play around with shadows, create a world for ourselves- a world I want her to keep constructing and inherit someday.

with love,

These journals are a testimony of my existence. Since the time I started travelling by myself, they have been my sole companions. There are conversations, recipes, fleeting thoughts and a lot of hope hidden inside the preserved petals and old restaurant bills. I often wonder who will inherit these journals that have captured a story lived. Would the person manage to read my illegible handwriting? Would they be able to relive every visual anecdote just by running their fingers across the dusty pages?

I don’t know, I never will.

More here: https://bit.ly/SpotlightShiftingSelves

majha by Gaurav Ogale x Farah Mulla for Sarmaya

YouTube Video VVVXRXluMDU2cjJybHJZM2FJbGZyTUlBLjVCZXdQS3Q5WnRv

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Shifting Selves

Dive Right In

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Wild Things

New to the Collection

The Qutub Minar, Delhi

The Asoka Rock, Junagadh

Ceylan (Ceylon)

Hoshang Shah’s Tomb (Jama Masjid), Mandu

Untitled #55 (From Batin)

Untitled #54 (From Batin)

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