EVENTS
2026 Edition: TOPOGRAPHIES
Topographies is a project that aims to present South Asian culture beyond reductive narratives. It explores how human conduct in South Asia is shaped by factors in the private, public, emotional and spatial realms by combining contemporary art from the region with its culinary practices.
The featured artists are: Sehaj Malik, Soroshi Michelle and Zahra Mansoor.
We will also be inviting other creatives, including designers, florists, and sommeliers, to participate at different moments within the program. Their contributions add further layers to the experience while staying connected to the core dialogue between art and food. The series takes place across various formats, i.e., a 4-course seated dinner, a cocktail party and creative workshops, each offering a different way of encountering the same artworks alongside their changing culinary manifestations.
Food is approached not as an accompaniment, but as a parallel medium. Through formats ranging from a seated dinner to a soirée with a food installation, visitors are invited to engage through both taste and observation. Each format offers a different entry point into the same artistic concerns, extending the experience beyond conventional exhibition models and opening the space to audiences beyond just art or food circles.
The relationship between the art and the food is explored through specific pairings, for example:
The works of artist Sehaj Malik are emblematic of her upbringing that was influenced by her father working in industrialized Delhi. Nothing represents the use of mechanical motion and repetition better than a Delhi staple: Laccha paratha. It requires skillful layering and repetition that can only be perfected through the passage of time. Both the art and the food examine the misperception of labour and how labour becomes know-how, with repetition and time.
The longing that exists in people in the public sphere, to be known for who they truly are in their private lives is a duality that people often live with in Karachi (and most of the world for that matter!) that is well-encapsulated in Zahra Mansoor's art. We reinterpret a Karachi-classic by serving a latticed Nalli Nihari pie to symbolize the collision of the artworks' parallel realities where a traditional stew that is simmered for hours to develop complexity stands in sharp contrast to the glimpses you get of an unassuming piece of meat through the lattice-patterned pastry.
Rather than a physical illustration of the artworks, the food will be designed to represent the emotional depths of each artist’s works.
Topographies brings these approaches together to offer a way of engaging with South Asian culture that moves past simplified readings. It invites visitors to see, taste and reflect on the many ways a culture is lived and expressed.
2026 DATES:
Between September 16 - 20
Sep 16 - Four-course seated dinner
Sep 18 - Cocktail party
~ A Domestic, Urban & Cosmic Exploration of South Asian Lives ~
COME THROUGH !
