The idiom of photographs can reach far beyond the world as we see it. Images which escape an indexicality to the ‘real’, can play between fact and fiction to re-present a hyper-real, abstract, imaginary, or even deeply social or political moment. They present another kind, and possibly a more enduring reflexivity. The artists here, by controlling each element of the frame, pre-determine the image. Recreating scenes from memory, constructing elaborate sets, staging selves, or retelling personal encounters, they address a range of immediate issues and concerns. Delving into techniques and histories of theatre, cinema, performance, literature, poetry and fiction, the mises-en-scène produced may be populated with found objects or sculpted elements, re-imagined as real topographies, or as conceptual narratives. The exhibition showcases contemporary works by artists pursuing such practices from South Asia and its neighbourhood.

Bani Abidi (1971), Azadeh Akhlaghi (1978), Dia Mehhta Bhupal (1984), Sharbendu De (1978), Sukanya Ghosh (1973), Krishen Khanna (1925), Yamini Nayar (1975), Prajakta Potnis (1980), Vivan Sundaram (1943) and Munem Wasif (1983).