Displaying art just the way we'd hang it

'Taqiya Qalaam' at Delhi Contemporary Art Week places art in everyday spaces like bedrooms and study corners

- Avantika Bhuyan

The exhibition area at the Living Traditions Centre, Bikaner House, Delhi, has transformed into a warm and playful living space. Segmented into rooms such as a study, children's corner and master bedroom, the setting is reminiscent of home. Within this space, you can engage with works of 18 artists, including Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai, Indu Antony, Chitra Ganesh, Yogesh Ramkrishna, Moonis Ijlal and Sunil Gupta.

The idea is to steer clear of the conventional white cube space and showcase how art can inhabit lived spaces and coexist with everyday routines and objects. This novel display, Taqiya Qalaam, has been curated by Priyanshi S. and designed by Amrita Guha and Joya Nandurdikar of Untitled Designs, a multidisciplinary design practice.

The show is part of the eighth edition of the Delhi Contemporary Art Week, a collaboration of six galleries—Latitude 28, Shrine Empire, Gallery Espace, Blueprint 12, Exhibit 320 and Vadehra Art Gallery—to spotlight shifts in South Asian contemporary art in terms of themes, materiality and mediums. The event, which is an annual fixture in the Capital's art calendar, also includes a "Sculpture Show" in the Main Building of Bikaner House, featuring works by 15 artists, and micro exhibitions by the participating galleries at the Centre for Contemporary Art.

Taqiya Qalaam is in sync with Priyanshi's larger practice to "make art entertaining, open up access and create innovative exhibition structures" that engage contemporary audiences. The exhibition draws from the phrase taqiya qalaam, or "word on the street" in Hindustani, which is part of everyday parlance. It explores "the effects, and affects of language, and words from different sources and contexts on our understanding of reality, and truth," states the curatorial note.