In a bid to democratize art, KNMA’s new installation features contemporary artists on a skybridge for all mall visitors to see
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) is thrilled to announce a transformative art installation housed in the KNMA Art Passage, the skybridge connecting Nexus Select CITYWALK and DLF South Court Mall – ‘Slow Is The New Urgent’, curated by Avik Debdas.
Image Courtesy- KNMA
The location of the exhibition adheres to KNMA’s mission of integrating meaningful artistic experiences into everyday public spaces.
Featuring Artists in the KNMA installation
A colourful trail of turtles sets the pace, inviting visitors through an immersive passage of artistic contemplation. Featuring eleven contemporary artists—Anshu Jakhar, C.K. Rajan, Hifzul Kabeer, K.M. Madhusudanan, Manveer Singh, Mohd. Intiyaz, Pallavi Singh, Schön Mendes, Slipa Sheeja, Sonam Chaturvedi, and Tahsin Akhtar— an environment that gradually shifts from digital and commercial sensory stimulation to quiet introspection, encouraging ‘slow looking’.
Image Courtesy- KNMA
The visitor then crosses a sanctuary of muted birds, televisions that blare a chorus of toxicity, rivers dyed in synthetic excess, and many other such markers of the rampant consumerism that litter the wider world.
Art at KNMA That Asks You to Pause
The ‘thinking passage’ also goes on to bring to the forefront the omnipresent digital surveillance that pervades modern life. The works illuminate how our every choice, pause, and click is methodically recorded, monetised, and fed back into algorithms that curate our next impulse.
The exhibition confronts visitors with the unsettling reality that our desires are increasingly engineered rather than authentic, optimised, and resold to us through the manipulative language of urgency, transforming even our attention itself into a marketable commodity.
Art for All is the vision
This exhibition is an extension of KNMA’s ongoing commitment to democratizing art. By establishing this thoughtful corridor in one of Delhi’s busiest commercial centres, the museum invites diverse audiences to experience how art can create moments of pause within our increasingly urgent world. Each segment of the passage encourages visitors to engage with what literary scholar Arden Reed describes as art that “waits mutely—patiently—for us to animate them.” “Slow is the New Urgent” will be open daily from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM, from 1 April 2025 onwards.
Image Courtesy- KNMA
Admission is free, making this thoughtful art experience accessible to all mall visitors. The curator, Avik Debdas, says on the exhibition
In this passage, the act of slowing down is a refutation—a way to resist and unlearn the urgency that markets script into our daily lives. Here, contemplation out values consumption, and to pause is to defy.
About KNMA
Established through the initiative of avid art collector Kiran Nadar, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) opened to the public in January 2010 as India’s first private museum dedicated to Modern and contemporary art from the subcontinent. With branches in New Delhi and Noida, KNMA is a non-commercial, not-for-profit institution supported by the Shiv Nadar Foundation. It seeks to foster a dynamic relationship between art and culture through its exhibitions, publications, educational initiatives, and public programs. Committed to institutional collaborations and artist support networks, KNMA actively engages with diverse audiences through its wide-ranging programming.
In the coming three to four years, KNMA is set to evolve into a landmark cultural destination with a new location, an expansive 100,000-square-meter (over 1 million square feet) architectural marvel, near the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi. It will feature multiple exhibition spaces, auditoriums, an archive centre, a library, restaurants, and a members’ room. Strengthening its role as a cultural epicentre, this expansion will further KNMA’s mission to be a vibrant hub for visual and performing arts, fostering artistic innovation and cultural dialogue.
Feature Image Courtesy- KNMA
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