Debashree Mukherjee (India) is a curator of Folk and Tribal Arts at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, where she focuses on researching, documenting, and contextualizing objects in the collection. Her curatorial practice considers objects within the wider cultural contexts, knowledge systems, and narratives that surround them, with particular attention to how objects are made, understood, documented, and represented. Through research and curatorial practice, she explores the relationships between objects, their makers, and the systems of knowledge through which they are interpreted and presented.

During her residency, Mukherjee will examine objects from the Indian subcontinent in UK museum collections, focusing on their collecting histories, documentation, contextualization, object labelling, and archival records. She will also explore different curatorial approaches to presenting vernacular practices and their makers, considering how these approaches might inform her own research and interpretation of objects in the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art’s Folk and Tribal Arts collection.

Recent projects and exhibitions include The Meeting Ground: Scenes from the KNMA Collection, presented at Christie’s, London (2026), where she worked as Associate Curator supporting the lead curators in the exhibition display and organisation; Pata Dekhabo? Shall I Show You a Pata?, an exhibition exploring the storytelling traditions of Bengal and Jharkhand through reproductions of artworks, co-curated with Kamal Mitra and presented at Art Passage, KNMA (2026); Ulta Pulta — The World Upside Down, a satirical exploration of social and political change in India through modern and contemporary art and editorial cartoons, co-curated with Neha Tickoo at Art Passage, KNMA (2024); and Shifting Horizons — Eight Contemporary Artists from the KNMA Collection, co-curated with Priya Chandra and presented at the Quorum Club, Gurugram, Delhi-NCR (2018–2019). Her publications and collection-based projects include the cataloguing of the Nemai Ghosh Collection for ‘Nemai Ghosh: Satyajit Ray & Beyond’, published by DAG and completed through Eka Archiving (2011).

Mukherjee holds a Diploma in Journalism from Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Delhi (2010–2011), a Master’s in Conservation, Preservation and Heritage Management from Indraprastha University, Delhi (2003–2005), and a Bachelor’s degree in History (Hons.) from Delhi University (2000–2003).

Mukherjee was born in India and is currently based in India.

With support from:

KNMA

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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.