MUMBAI.- Sakshi Gallery presents The Body Politic, a group show curated by Riya Kumar. The show opens on June 12, 2025 in conjunction with Art Night Thursday and remains on view until July 19, 2025.

The Body Politic explores the relationship and interactions between bodies and the landscapes that they inhabit. The show brings together seven artistic practices—Bhanu Shrivastav, Kshetrimayum Gopinath Singh, Jayanta Roy, Ritesh Ajmeri, Ritika Sharma, Salik Ansari, and Siddhartha Kararwal— examining how personal histories, urban infrastructures, and political systems intersect on and through the body.

Salik Ansari turns attention to sites under construction, investigating urban structures that conceal human displacement. In Ansari’s work, the subject is implied, encoded through absence. Kshetrimayum Gopinath Singh’s paintings, devoid of explicit human references, capture the enduring violence inflicted upon the landscape of Manipur and its resulting impact on the human psyche.

Using the personal as a starting point for collective experiences, Ritesh Ajmeri's works evoke skin, translating personal, bodily interactions with his surroundings. In Ritika Sharma’s works, the personal becomes political. Drawing from CCTV stills and crime reportage, Sharma’s work explores the nature of human encounters in public areas under surveillance, where lines between safety and control dissolve.

These practices also confront systems of power that attempt to undermine and destabilize communities. Siddhartha Kararwal approaches questions of power by merging pop cultural references with satirical commentary on erasures and silences. Bhanu Shrivastav addresses landscapes under threat, using photo-performance as a means of resistance. Jayanta Roy references everyday objects, to create urban landscapes that reveal violence and conflict.

These artistic practices reveal how bodies are shaped and surveilled by the landscapes they inhabit, and concomitantly, how bodies may choose to resist socio-political apparatuses that expect conformity.

Riya Kumar is a Curatorial Associate at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai. In her previous role at the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru, she worked on physical and online exhibitions, as well as digital projects. She was part of the curatorial team for the museum’s inaugural permanent exhibition, VISIBLE/INVISIBLE: Representation of Women in Art through the MAP Collection. She received her MA in Curating from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London and a BA in Psychology from Claremont McKenna, California.