Nilima Sheikh: Fractured Skies opens at The Museum of Modern Art on September 27, 2026, and runs through June 13, 2027. Moreover, the exhibition is co-organised by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, and MoMA. It brings together three major bodies of work spanning the artist’s five-decade practice. Together, they explore history, memory and displacement.
Official information: https://www.moma.org/
Meanwhile, the exhibition centres on Each Night Put Kashmir in Your Dreams (2003–14). The suspended double-sided scrolls combine poetry, oral histories and stencil patterns. They create layered visual narratives of Kashmir’s beauty, loss and resilience.
In addition, Home, Land (2023–25) focuses on the lives of the Bakarwal nomadic communities of Jammu and Kashmir. The series brings the exhibition’s themes of displacement into the present. Meanwhile, Shahid/Witness debuts at MoMA. The new commission features ten monumental suspended scrolls that examine war, unrest and the act of bearing witness.
Nilima Sheikh: Fractured Skies Explores Memory and Displacement
Sheikh builds her work through careful layering. She combines artisan-made stencils, folklore, poetry and historical references. As a result, her paintings become repositories of personal and collective memory. However, she never offers a simple narrative. Instead, delicate craftsmanship exists alongside traces of violence and erasure.
Furthermore, Sheikh’s suspended scrolls create a spatial experience. Their scale and textile references echo Kashmiri shawls and map-shawls. Consequently, viewers engage with the works physically as well as emotionally.
About Nilima Sheikh
Nilima Sheikh studied at Delhi University and the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Since then, she has exhibited internationally, including at the Art Institute of Chicago and documenta 14. Her works are also part of major collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Exhibition Details
Finally, Nilima Sheikh: Fractured Skies opens at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, on September 27, 2026. The exhibition continues until June 13, 2027. Visitors can check MoMA’s website for timings, tickets and related programmes.
Cover image: Nilima Sheikh, Son el Lumiere (detail), 2006 – 2016, Casein tempera on canvas scroll (Two sided), 120.1 x 72in. Collection & credit: Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
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