August 2023

The Swan Studio at Kingston School of Art, Kingston University (Kingston, UK)

In collaboration with artist Tanvi Ranjan

Seek.and.Hide

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Seek.and.Hide *

Seek.and.Hide was a solo exhibition featuring the work of artist Tanvi Ranjan. Held at The Swan Studio Gallery at the Kingston School of Art, the exhibition brought together knitted textiles, garments, objects, sound, and video to explore how language and meaning are embedded into materials—sometimes visibly, sometimes in code.

The show invited visitors to think about what is revealed and what is concealed in the making process. From her grandfather’s notes from a textile mill in Gwalior to machine-knitted QR codes and steel-punched-cards sculpture, Tanvi’s work reflects on how histories, identities, and languages are stored, repeated, and sometimes lost. The show resists linear legibility; instead, it encourages an embodied reading, where secrecy, repetition, and error become forms of knowledge.

A private view with an artist talk, reading session, and guided tour allowed for deeper conversations about the artworks. 

  • To curate a solo exhibition in collaboration with artist Tanvi Ranjan, framing textile-based practice as a speculative interface of identity, communication, and feminist critique

    • In-person studio visits and material walk-throughs with the artist

    • Informal and recorded interviews focusing on material language and memory

    • Comparative analysis of post-industrial textile exhibition formats

    • Spatial and sensorial mapping of site-specific display techniques

    • Critical Examiniation of decoloniality and cyberfeminism in contemporary arts

    • Contemporary textile artists and exhibitions (focus on post-industrial lens)

    • Archival Display in contemporary arts exhibition

    • Curatorial Exhibtion writing

    • Spatially inspored poetic fragments for each exhibition zone

    • Textual-coding metaphors in printed collateral inspired from artist's practice

    • A four-day solo exhibition at The Swan Studio, Kingston University

    • Live public programming including reading, artist walkthrough, and Q&A

    • A press release integrating bio, context, map, and poetic text

    • Custom-designed collateral: bookmarks encoded in ASCII as conceptual memento

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Curator-led Artist Talk

The artist talk held on the opening day of Seek.and.Hide was a deeply personal moment for me. I’ve known Tanvi since 2014, and curating her first solo show felt like returning to a shared language we’d been building over years of friendship and creative exchange. Instead of a formal presentation, I began by reading a short poetic passage in each room—writing inspired by her work and the questions it asks. These readings created a gentle rhythm that guided the conversation, inviting visitors to respond emotionally and intuitively.

The talk was not only a walkthrough of the exhibition but a window into our working relationship—an open dialogue where we spoke about process, trust, and how our research overlaps. What emerged was a quiet but charged space for exchange, where visitors felt comfortable asking questions, sharing reflections, and staying with the complexity of Tanvi’s practice.

The press release combined the artist’s bio, exhibition context, map, and short poetic texts to introduce Seek.and.Hide. It offered visitors an accessible guide to the show’s themes.

Press Release

Custom-designed bookmarks encoded in ASCII were distributed as takeaway collaterals—small, material echoes of the exhibition’s interest in language, code, and memory.

Collateral