FROM ARCHIVE TO JUNKYARD TO VIDEO ART

A spotlight on a Delhi exhibition that grew from a simple idea — to display old film posters — to focus on how cinema actually circulates through cultural memory

- UTHAMA SANKARANARAYANAN

Hindi cinema reappears not as a spectacle but as an afterimage. The exhibition ‘Duniya Parchhaiyon Ki’ (The World of Shadows) turns away from movie screens to look at what lingers — the traces, echoes, and re-imaginings that spill into everyday life. Curated by noted film historian Ashish Rajadhyaksha, the show is a layered journey through the material, emotional, and sonic residues of popular Hindi cinema.

“Hindi cinema is not just narrative,” Rajadhyaksha says. “Tt’s a shared cultural memory —a form of citizenship almost. We claim our right to exist through our right to see films.” The idea of ‘cinematic citizenship’ runs through the three-act exhibition, which transforms Arthshila into a shifting, immersive environment of sound, image, and memory.

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