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Ski(e)n: Abhijna Vemuru Kasa and Insha Manzoor Bring New Narratives to Dhoomimal Gallery
- Style Essentials Edit Team
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Dhoomimal Gallery opens its December programme with Ski(e)n: Re-membering through Performance and Thread, an exhibition that brings together RCA alumni Abhijna Vemuru Kasa and Insha Manzoor under the curatorship of Jyoti A Kathpalia. Both artists work from deeply personal terrains, yet their practices intersect on questions of memory, identity, and the structures—cultural, familial, and political—that shape the body.
Abhijna, who divides her time between Hyderabad and San Francisco, examines the narratives that continue to define and restrict women. Her work turns to stories, myths, and domestic realities not as tokens of tradition but as sites of negotiation. Much of her recent practice reflects on post-partum experience and the pressures placed on women to conform to inherited ideas of femininity. In her work, these expectations are dismantled and reassembled, often through materials or gestures that draw attention to how stories about women are made and repeated.
Insha’s practice, rooted in Kashmir, traces a different but parallel trajectory. She works with weaving, embroidery, and other craft traditions to think about intergenerational knowledge and the quiet forms of resilience embedded in them. For her, the act of making is entangled with memory—of people, places, and a sense of continuity that is repeatedly tested in the region she comes from. While her materials may appear delicate, her questions are not; they point to the politics of place, the weight of inherited roles, and the ways individuals hold on to themselves in shifting environments.
What connects the two artists is not similarity in medium but a shared interest in how the body absorbs, carries, and at times resists cultural inscription. Ski(e)n places these concerns in conversation, bringing together oils, acrylics, mixed media, thread, fabric, photography, installation, and performance. Several works extend into digital documentation and immersive environments, where the idea of skin and skein becomes a language of translation—between craft and technology, between the personal and the archival.
The gallery underscores its intention to foreground emerging contemporary voices. “Dhoomimal Gallery’s commitment to bringing younger artists to the fore has been an ongoing one. We believe that new perspectives and exciting ventures are the driving forces of creativity,” notes Sunaina Jain. Director Uday Jain points to the international perspective the artists bring to their practice while remaining closely connected to their cultural contexts, giving the exhibition a distinctive texture. Curator Jyoti A Kathpalia describes the show as an inquiry into the gendered body and the cultural motifs that shape it. For her, the work of both artists attempts to re-inscribe the self within its environment by revisiting memory, craft, and the visual language of the everyday.
The exhibition includes an art talk and curatorial walks, offering visitors an opportunity to engage more closely with the ideas driving the show.
Exhibition Details
Title: Ski(e)n: Re-membering through Performance and Thread
Artists: Abhijna Vemuru Kasa & Insha Manzoor
Curator: Jyoti A Kathpalia
Dates: 6 December 2025 – 10 January 2026, 11am–6pm
Venue: Dhoomimal Gallery, G-42, Connaught Place, New Delhi, India
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