NON-RESIDENCY
August 9 - October 5, 2025
Curated and Presented by: Rajiv Menon Contemporary
Aman Aheer | Nibha Akireddy | Shyama Golden | Asif Hoque | Melissa Joseph | Keerat Kaur | Viraj Khanna | Suchitra Mattai | Anoushka Mirchandani | Rajni Perera | Sahana Ramakrishnan | Maya Seas | Kelly Sinappah Mary | Maya Varadaraj | Ricky Vasan
This exhibition explores the contemporary aesthetics of the Indian diaspora. While seemingly sharing much in common, the rifts between the diaspora and the homeland can feel vast. In the context of the homeland, diasporic culture is often dismissed as diluted or derivative, a distortion of the familiar that almost feels uncanny. The diaspora and the homeland appear to each other as dissonant doubles; the same, but not quite.
In practice, the Indian diaspora is both deeply diverse and creatively vibrant. The unique cultural placement of these communities has led to tremendous aesthetic innovation. These artists thrive in the uncanny feelings of the in-between. They embrace an often blurry sense of self and the contradictions of existing neither here nor there.
In re-imagining the cultural influences of India and their nations of residence, diasporic visual artists resist the confines of identity and geography. The artists in the exhibition draw on experiences ranging from immigration, exile, and indentureship; these artists transform “non-residency” , often a purely demographic category, into a powerful aesthetic lens.
This exhibition presents these artists as an aesthetic cohort: the Non-Resident School, for whom a conversant, uncanny language of figuration coalesces into a larger cultural movement. At a time in the Americas defined by migration and displacement, these artists work in concert to provide a visual lexicon to speak to this landscape. Bringing these artists to Jaipur for the first time, this exhibition serves as an act of homecoming, cementing a culturally significant global cohort of artists through the Jaipur Centre for Art’s unique curatorial platform.