Artworks Born of Belonging

Growing up in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, artist Juhika Devi Bhanjdeo was always surrounded by the region’s rich heritage and the artistic traditions of its tribal communities. 

“I watched my mother’s hands transform fabric through embroidery, creating intricate patterns that carried stories, identity, and memory,” recalls Bhanjdeo, adding, “Those intimate acts of creation the rhythm of the needle, the patience required, the way meaning accumulated stitch by stitch profoundly shaped how I understood the world.” 

“Art became my language for processing questions about identity, belonging, and the invisible codes that structure our lives.”

Bhanjdeo’s artworks are currently on display at the exhibition, ‘Dramaturgies of Space’, at Latitude 28’s newly opened gallery in Delhi’s Defence Colony. The show will be on view till November 30. 

Alongside Bhanjdeo, the other artists whose works are featured at the exhibition include Firi Rahman, Sudipta Das, Salik Ansari, Chandan Bez Baruah, Waswo X Waswo, and Riyas Komu. The exhibition features artworks developed on various subjects — of migration, ecology, hybridity, and myth.

Bhanjdeo’s works on view at the exhibition are inspired from paying attention to small, often overlooked details like cracks in ceramic and ruptures in cloth. The artist uses materials like clay, velvet, safety pins, fabric, and yarn. While some artworks took several months to be made, the others were created over years of practice. Working with unpredictable materials, especially indigo and clay, Bhanjdeo says, was particularly challenging, and required immense patience. 

“‘Dramaturgies of Space’ is an exhibition that turns the gallery into a living, breathing organism—  one that performs and responds,” Latitude 28 director, Bhavna Kakar, says. “It represents how we at Latitude 28 have always imagined exhibitions, not as static displays but as evolving encounters between artists, architecture, and audiences.”