Avijna Bhattacharya (India) is a curator, writer, and art historian whose practice engages with living archives, art-pedagogic histories, and creative legacies. As Senior Curator (Visual Arts) at the Kiran Museum of Art, New Delhi, her work explores the intersections of historical research, translation, and exhibition-making, examining how artistic lineages and cultural histories can be reactivated through contemporary curatorial narratives. Spanning South Asian modernisms and contemporary artistic practices, her research connects transregional historiographies, rigorous documentation, and evolving forms of knowledge production.
During her residency, Avijna will explore the theme of material history as narratology, considering art objects as dynamic tools of narration rather than fixed expressions of place or identity. Drawing on archival research, she will investigate exhibitions, institutional records, and pedagogical histories that illuminate the intersections between Indian art and British cultural institutions. Focusing on resources such as the Tate Archive, Whitechapel Gallery exhibition records, and the Royal College of Art Archives, she aims to examine how artistic training, exhibition histories, and archival materials contribute to the construction and transmission of cultural memory across generations and geographies.
Recent curatorial projects include Extraordinary Line (2025); Purvaee: Evoking Pedagogic Lineages (2024); MIRROR/MAZE: Echoes of Song, Space, Spectre (2023–24); The Rooted Nomad: M.F. Husain (2024), as assistant curator; and Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular (2023), as assistant curator. Her publications include Extraordinary Line (2025), Purvaee: Evoking Pedagogic Lineages (2024), and her essay contribution to The Rooted Nomad: M.F. Husain (2024). She has contributed extensively to exhibition catalogues and art journals, with a sustained focus on artistic pedagogies, institutional histories, and South Asian art.
Avijna holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in History of Art from Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, and a Master of Fine Arts in Art Criticism from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.
Avijna was born in India and is currently based there.
With support from:
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
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Please note all artist-in-residence biographies are accurate at the time of their residency. For up-to-date bios please visit the artist’s website.