The group exhibition presents works of 13 contemporary Indian and International artists.

The word Bhū is associated with the creation of the world; the epic poem depicting cosmogony in the Pūrana mentions the breaking of the Aṇḍa (the primal egg or seed) and the emergence of the sound Bhū. It also refers to earth and is one of the 53 synonyms of Dharaṇi (earth), Deśa (country), and Bhūmi (land). Tatva signifies the five essential elements constituting the human body, earth, water, fire, air and sky. Each Tatva is associated with corresponding symbols, colours and chakras.

Working in clay as a medium for creative expression is equivalent to being ready for experimenting, failing and redoing.  As it passed through several stages of refinement, clay acquired the status of art. A significant part of our cultural history is modelled by the skilful hands that worked with clay. Clay is the most natural of mediums; despite the advanced technics and technologies, one can still use the primordial medium to create the most modern forms. The high degree of tangibility and scope for expansion make the medium the most relevant, even in a world dominated by virtuality.

Ceramics as an art form often invokes ideas of origin, roots and existence. It is also an act of becoming a changed state, iterating our sensorial connections with the world and nature. The visual language ingraining the elemental constituents is a poetic rendering of the world in frozen forms. The simple yet profound idea is the guiding trope of the exhibition. Varying across generations, the artists in the exhibition bring diverse works articulating a wide variety of thoughts bound together by materiality and the act of formation and becoming. This large-scale Ceramics exhibition is to review, re-evaluate and re-assert the challenges and possibilities inherent in working in this medium – a medium which is ancient and contemporary at the same time.

–       Falguni Bhatt