Manjot Kaur

Manjot Kaur’s drawings, paintings, and time-based media attempt to de-patriarch-ize the sovereignty of ecology and women’s bodies. Her practice intersects the boundaries of speculative fiction, archetypal allegories, and precarious ecologies to push back against the centering of human as a protagonist and move toward a thinking that eradicates the hierarchy of being. She cross-pollinates ancient mythologies and histories to reflect on the relationship between humans and more than humans. Her works delve deep into intimate worlds encompassing the anthropology of wonder and awe, proposing narratives that imagine a multi-species future, by responding to ecological grief and loneliness through acts of care and kinship. 

Her detailed and intimate paintings invite viewers to spend time with them and ponder over the symbiosis between humankind and ecology. How do the worlds that we create in fantasy impact our thinking practices? How do we mourn for what we have lost and what efforts are required to regain the biodiversity that is currently on the verge of extinction?  What stories should we narrate to offer notions of care and help fantasize for a sovereign present and future for ourselves and the other species with whom we cohabit on this planet? 

Manjot has received numerous prestigious grants and fellowships such as The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA in March – April 2023, and Sustaina India Fellowship at CEEW (Council on Energy, Environment and Water) and Generator Art Production Fund grant from Experimenter Gallery, India in 2022. Her recent participations include Ecosystems are Lovestories at Gallery Latitude 28 (Bawwaba, Art Dubai 2024), Tomorrows/ Today 2024 at Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Green Snake – Women Centered Ecologies at Tai Kwun, Hong Kong in 2023, and Becoming Earths at Gallery Caroline O’Breen (Amsterdam Art Week 2023), among others.She was chosen by Hindustan Times as one of the Top 30-under-30 young achievers in 2017. 

Photo Credit: Sumeet Verma