Four installation artists create four distinct experiences across four floors in Liminal Gaps at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai. In ascending order are artists Ayesha Singh, Raqs Media Collective, Asim Waqif and Afrah Shafiq. Singh offers a monochromatic, yet incisive take on India’s architectural history; Raqs tracks the movement of time across time zones, imaginations, colour theory, and augmented reality (AR); Waqif creates a two-storeyed playhouse with indigenous building materials; and Shafiq imagines an interactive game on India’s early feminists, such as Pandita Ramabai and the Phules. Curated by Triadic, a New York-based agency, Liminal Gaps is an entry point to India’s installation art, beyond the public shows of Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and St+art in Mumbai. 

For all its informality and irrationality, Indian cities and their gobbledegook architecture hold the key to human imagination. Built upon centuries of original and hybrid styles, these spaces have been simplified and linearised by Singh in her work, Hybrid Drawings (2024). With an MFA in sculpture from the Art Institute of Chicago, Singh’s installation is like an X-ray of India’s built legacy. Composed of stainless steel, Singh compresses Sultanate and Mughal-era arches, Victorian spires and Hindu sunbursts into a seamless walkthrough. Upon entering the room, the first visual is of the two sunbursts on the wall, in two dimensions, that extend out to create three-dimensional forms, like line drawings come to life. In between pyramidal caps and rounded domes are the connecting curves of Jaipuri doors and the austere angles of church tops. The shadows they cast hint at the shadows they have been reduced to, as glass, steel, and reinforced concrete have taken over modern buildings. The identity of empires and their people is chained to architecture. But, by placing different styles in a single space, Singh fast-forwards history. Her work is a reminder that today's monuments are the ruins of tomorrow and that the kings of today are the footnotes of tomorrow.  

Up next are five different, if connected, works by Raqs Media Collective. Founded in 1992 by practitioners Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, the multi-hyphenate artists’ presentation includes works from 2008 to the present day. On the staircases, in between all the floors, is Nerves (2018), in which blue walls have been printed with illustrations of neurons and fill-in-the-blank phrases. Idioms such as ‘lose one’s’, ‘get on somebody’s’ and ‘hit a raw’ are left hanging in the air, with the word ‘nerve’ getting auto-replaced in our minds. In the corridor of their floor is Chromacron (2024), which charts Pantone’s 'Color of the Year' from 2000-2024 in vertical strips. Peach Fuzz, Viva Magenta, Very Peri, Living Coral, Rose Quartz, Marsala, Radiant Orchid, Tangerine Tango, Honeysuckle, Mimosa, and others, come together to create a colour bar, reminiscent of Doordarshan’s test card.

Escapement (2009), Be-taal (2023), and Night & Day, Day & Night (2014) are in the galleries. Escapement includes 27 clocks set to different time zones, some real (Delhi, Tokyo, etc), some imaginary (Shangri-La, Macondo, etc). A dozen emotions replace the numbers. When I visited, it was 12.30 pm outside; but inside, Mumbai was between anxiety and nostalgia. Be-taal is in AR and can be viewed through an iPad. A flubber-like substance hangs above the central chamber, like the spectral Betaal who hung above Vikram. Finally, Night & Day, Day & Night is a giant clock that tracks the different scales of time in Devanagari, from a kshan (second) to a yug (century) to kaal (eternity).

On floor three in a barn-like space is Waqif’s Chaal (2024). A trained architect from the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, Waqif’s installation looks like a game of fiddlesticks, composed of bamboo. Similar to his site-specific installation for the Kochi Muziris Biennale, Improvise (2022), which was also constructed with bamboo, woven pandanus leaves, and ropes, Chaal is a mammoth dwelling, with caves, coves, and hammocks fitted willy-nilly. The work is strewn with straw curtains, jute mats, coconut shells, and wooden xylophones. Kids can climb the scaffolding and adults can take naps. An ode to vernacular building systems, the piece uses bamboo weaving to create parametric forms, binding nostalgia and newness together.

Finally, in the attic, is Shafiq’s Sultana’s Reality (2017). In a room covered in a black-and-neon-green grid is a television screen, on which participants can play a game, which is more like navigating a website. It offers bite-sized information on the lives of the first generation of women to be educated in pre-Independent India. There’s also a library outside filled with poems, essays, fiction, diary entries, and speeches by women. Titles include The History of Humayun (1902) by Gulbadan Begam, The Crooked Line (1943) by Ismat Chughtai and Saguna(1895) by Krupabai Satthianadhan, the first autobiographical novel in English by an Indian woman. Somewhere in the collection is About the Grief of the Mangs and the Mahars by Mukta Salve, an essay written in 1855, perhaps the earliest surviving piece of writing by a Dalit woman. In its introduction, the editor notes, “Muktabai’s essay is a great example of the Phules’ belief in the potential explosiveness of education.” The game might be new-age, but it’s the old-fashioned truths that leave an impact.

As a tactile, physical, and mental exploration, Liminal Gaps crosses over some thresholds easily and stumbles over others. Some of the works by Raqs border on esotericism and Shafiq’s Sultana’s Reality is Feminism 101. But, in Singh's sparseness and Waqif’s largeness, we get two floors of contemplation and joy, which are good odds for a group show.

‘Liminal Gaps’ runs from March 31 – June 9, 2024, at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai.