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RITES: Alida Sun Brings Code, Craft, and Ritual Together at Method Delhi
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Method presents RITES, a solo exhibition by Berlin– and New York–based artist and technologist Alida Sun, on view from 31 January to 15 March 2026 in New Delhi. The exhibition examines technology through an alternative lens, placing code in conversation with ritual, embroidery, mirrorwork, and collective labour.
At the centre of RITES is Sun’s long-term daily coding practice. For more than 2,300 consecutive days, she has written a new generative artwork every day, treating repetition not as productivity, but as discipline and commitment. In this context, coding functions less as optimisation and more as ritual, where consistency becomes a way to resist extractive and surveillance-driven models of technology.
The exhibition foregrounds a largely overlooked history of computation, one in which women played a foundational role as early programmers and software engineers, at a time when software was considered secondary labour. RITES draws from this lineage, reclaiming technology as a space of care, authorship, and agency rather than control or militarisation.
Sun’s works translate code into textile form through collaboration with women artisans at SSMI. Using hand embroidery and mirrorwork, computational systems are reinterpreted as tactile surfaces. These tapestries do not illustrate technology; they embody it. Code is written, stitched, reflected, and layered, allowing digital logic to pass through hands, materials, and community.
Mirrorwork, traditionally associated with protection and spiritual symbolism, is embedded within the tapestries. In RITES, it operates both materially and conceptually, reflecting light while suggesting encryption, camouflage, and defence in an era of constant algorithmic visibility.
Each work is generated through Sun’s movement in space. Infrared light captures her gestures, which are then translated into code, becoming both signature and sigil. The resulting tapestries function as abstract human–machine portraits, where presence is recorded without being exposed, and identity is encoded rather than displayed.
The exhibition opens on 31 January with an evening hosted by Sanjana Rishi and Ruchika Sachdeva, including a presentation by Alida Sun. During the opening programme, Sun will speak about code as a multi-sensory medium that moves across sound, light, textiles, bodies, and space, emphasising process over outcome and treating glitches as generative rather than corrective.
The opening will conclude with a live-coded audio-visual performance by Abhinay Khoparzi, who responds to the exhibition through improvisational sound generated in real time. His performance extends the exhibition’s ideas into the auditory realm, using algorithmic processes as performative tools and positioning code as a shared, exploratory space.
RITES is also an official India Art Fair Parallel. Selected works by Alida Sun will be presented at Method’s booth (E10) during the fair from 5 to 8 February 2026.
Through its combination of code, craft, and collaboration, RITES reframes technology as something that can be slow, embodied, and collective. Rather than offering solutions, the exhibition opens space for reflection on how tools are used, who builds them, and what values they carry forward.
Exhibition Details
RITES
Solo exhibition by Alida Sun
Dates: 31 January – 15 March 2026
Timings: 12:00 pm – 7:00 pm (Closed Mondays)
Venue: Method Delhi
D-59, Basement, Block D, Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024
Opening Night: 31 January 2026
Presentation by Alida Sun
Live-coded performance by Abhinay Khoparzi
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