however the image enters, its force remains

Each year, FICA’s annual showcase is an opportunity for us to bring together stellar practices supported by our grants, accompanied by active forms of dialogue and sharing. This July, we are thrilled to be presenting the inaugural cohort of our 10 EAA+ grantees, bringing together bodies of work spanning a range of mediums, processes and material explorations.

Within the aegis of this show, we are drawn to the intersections produced by and within the image—unlimited and expansive in its scope, interpretation, translation and frame—tending towards the possibilities of many worlds. A culmination of multi-faceted intertwinings, the exhibition presents reflections on space and space-making, on participation and participatory modes of being, reflecting on how so much of what is produced within contemporary art practice is driven by acts of witnessing, to proximities and precarities in the face of elongated uncertainty. It thinks with what it means to enter into conversation, and to stay with its shifting tenor. It asks how we read the rewordings and refusals made present, and how do we think of what propels us, our agencies, the images we make, and the force of intuition in making.

Taking from “Afterimages,” a poem by Audre Lorde that poignantly and powerfully explores how memories linger and shape our understanding of the world, the exhibition and its extended propositions lean towards asking: What is this moment of making defined by? What does it constitute? How do we gather in and as we make, alongside our processes and works, in a way that holds on to the depths of hope, the depths of desire?

The EAA+ platform has been made possible in collaboration with the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation. We also thank our Residency Partner Arthshila Art Studios, Siwan. We are grateful for the support of Vadehra Art Gallery towards the making of this exhibition.