The India National Pavilion
Geographies of Distance
La Biennale di Venezia 2026
May 09 – November 22, 2026

The Pavilion of India announces Geographies of Distance: remembering home. Presented by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India and curated by Dr Amin JaIer, the exhibition will reflect the cultural depth of the nation at a key moment on the world stage. The India Pavilion returns to Venice for the first time since 2019, in partnership with the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre and Serendipity Arts, two of India’s leading multi-disciplinary cultural institutions.

All five participating Indian artists – Alwar Balasubramaniam (Bala), Sumakshi Singh, Ranjani Shettar, Asim Waqif and Skarma Sonam Tashi – draw on the material culture traditions that span millennia to evoke an emotional connection to the idea of home. Despite the artists’ different geographic origins, experience and practice, all are united in their use of organic materials traditional to India in the creation and presentation of their work. 

Geographies of Distance: remembering home will express how, for those whose lives are shaped by change or distance, home becomes less a fixed place and more a portable condition: part memory, part material, part ritual, part personal mythology. The exhibition reflects a moment of accelerated change in India, as cities grow horizontally and vertically, transforming neighbourhoods at an unprecedented pace. 

Indians today are more mobile than ever, both within a country in the throes of economic boom and as a visible and vocal global diaspora. Constituting nearly 20 per cent of the world’s population, Indians remain deeply connected to their origins and culture. As once familiar physical spaces transform and renew, we are invited to consider whether home is a place or an evocation of emotion and memory.

Across the exhibition, elements of ‘home’ appear fractured, suspended, scaled, or vulnerable as the artists explore longing and a deep-rooted sense of attachment to the place to which we belong. Each artist considers India’s transformation, mobility and the global diaspora.

India seeps into Venice not as a spectacle, but as a whisper with confidence. Through music, movement and murmurs, the India Pavilion creates ephemeral interventions that dissolve into the city’s daily rhythm – appearing at dawn on a bridge, resonating at dusk, materialising during afternoon light. A key highlight of the India Pavilion will be a curated programme of music, performance, poetry and conversation over the course of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

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