In a historic first, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg will host a major exhibition of contemporary Indian art titled Sediments of Becoming: Fossilised Present, Summoned Pasts from 4 June to 4 October 2026. Organised in collaboration with Threshold Art Gallery, New Delhi, the exhibition signals a significant moment in global cultural exchange, bringing contemporary Indian artistic practices into dialogue with one of the world’s most storied museum collections.
Curated by Marina Schulz, Head of the Contemporary Art Department at the Hermitage, and Indian curator Tunty Chauhan, the exhibition brings together eleven prominent Indian artists: Afrah Shafiq, Anindita Bhattacharya, Debashish Mukherjee, Gargi Raina, Lakshmi Madhavan, Manjunath Kamath, Maya Krishna Rao, Pushpamala N., Ravinder Reddy, Sumakshi Singh, and V. Ramesh. Many of the works have been newly commissioned, developed either in response to the exhibition’s conceptual framework or through research conducted during a 2025 residency at the Hermitage.
Founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great, the Hermitage Museum houses over three million objects across six historic buildings, including the Winter Palace. Within this monumental context, Sediments of Becoming situates contemporary Indian art within a broader civilisational and art historical continuum. The exhibition departs from conventional representations of India in global museums, often shaped by colonial collecting practices and instead foregrounds artistic practice as a form of cultural archaeology.
The exhibition interrogates how histories are constructed, interpreted, and reclaimed. The participating artists engage with personal, political, and philosophical questions, offering new ways of understanding India’s cultural memory and its ongoing transformation.
A key feature of the exhibition is its dialogic display strategy. Contemporary works are presented alongside historical objects, including icons, frescoes, graphic prints, and decorative arts from the Hermitage and affiliated Russian institutions. Rather than positioning contemporary art as supplementary, the juxtaposition seeks to illuminate shared visual languages, unexpected affinities, and deeper historical continuities.
Tunty Chauhan describes the exhibition as a critical act of narrative reclamation. At a time of geopolitical fragmentation, she frames it as an assertion of cultural continuity and agency, where Indian artists articulate their histories from within rather than being interpreted externally. Marina Schulz, meanwhile, emphasises the organic origins of the project, which emerged through personal connections and sustained artistic engagement rather than formal institutional diplomacy.
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