British-Caribbean artist & designer Samuel Ross MBE debuted the site-specific pavilion, DIASPORA PASSAGE 01001A, as a Special Project of ADFF:STIR Mumbai 2026. Wielding colour, asymmetry and democratic materials to express states of vigilance, flux and cultural alchemy, Ross binds shared experiences and meaning by contorting industrial materials, expressing perpetuity in form, delivering spiritually inspired contemplations through the visual-physical allegory in DIASPORA PASSAGE 01001A, a pronounced physical structure granting respite. An intimate selection of paintings, drawings, objects and manifesto texts crafted by Ross and leading community voices will be on view alongside new concept seating forms. The project is a partnership realised with the British Council, STIR, Friedman Benda and SR_A.
LIVinSET, conceived for ADFF:STIR 2026, is a spatial composition shaped by light, surface, silence and pause—a ‘set’ where design objects are freed from their prescribed obligation to function. The project staged the interior as a site of performance, framing everyday life as choreography, through repeated gestures and rituals. Objects became props, guiding spatial movement and transforming the home into both sanctum and stage. Within the mise-en-scène, furniture, lighting, textiles, sculptural elements and architectural surfaces assemble into a constellation of narratives, forms and colours. Their collective arrangements reveal layers of composition, hierarchy, and dramaturgy, creating a tension between stillness and motion.
