Mumbai, August 21, 2025: Anupa Mehta Contemporary Art, a Mumbai-based gallery, presents a curated selection of works by six women artists exploring contemporary textile-based practices.
The participating artists include Alamu Kumaresan, Aparajita Jain Mahajan, Dr. Savia Viegas, Hansika Sharma, Lakshmi Madhavan, and Meenakshi Nihalani. Conceptualized by Anupa Mehta, with curatorial text by Goa-based historian and curator Lina Vincent, the exhibition contextualizes textile practices in India and investigates the dynamic possibilities of textile based art as seen in the works of diverse practitioners.
Where the River Meets the Sea is currently on view and runs until September 11, 2025, at AMCA, Colaba.
Says Anupa Mehta, “The river, a symbol of life’s journey, personal growth, memory, transformation, and hybridity, can be read as a metaphor for the creative and artistic impulse flowing through an artist’s work. At the point where it merges with the sea, it becomes part of a larger whole—a more universal truth. The exhibition is thus an invitation to reflect on this impulse within each artist’s practice, even as it positions textile art as a medium for feminist reflection.”
Each of the participating artists brings a distinct vocabulary, drawing from lineage, ancestry, and tradition while remaining firmly contemporary. Their works celebrate feminine strength and highlight how feminist perspectives and women’s voices continue to shape the discourse of contemporary art. In addition, a selection of artworks will be made available at special prices, offering collectors and first-time buyers an opportunity to acquire works by women artists redefining textile art.
Offering a broader context, Goa-based critic Lina Vincent notes: “A glimpse at the textile map of the Indian subcontinent reveals an abundant heritage: yarns, weaves, block-making and printing, dyeing processes, appliqué, embroideries, and specialised karigari thrive in every region. Woven textiles preserve memory in their warp and weft; they represent culture and social evolution, deeply entwined with the histories of politics, trade, and colonialism. Textile and its decoration are coloured by gendered experience, with forms of needlework, embroidery, knitting, and quilting are often relegated to the space of craft and feminine domesticity.
As many artists bring textile and fibre art into the mainstream, critical studies in modern and contemporary art are erasing the rigid distinctions between artisans, artists, and designers. In India, there is a growing acceptance of textile and fibre art in both exhibition-making and art discourse. Woven art and textile are increasingly used to present matrilineal knowledge, shared consciousness of the past, and forms of activism and resistance. Thread and dyes replace the formal devices of drawing and painting, while retaining deep connections to specific skills and traditions.”
Continuing the legacy of textile practitioners before them, the six artists in Where the River Meets the Sea traverse the personal and political, addressing memory, materiality, feminist positions, and socio-cultural shifts. Consciously and unconsciously, they weave threads of their truths, bringing untold narratives to the fore.
At a time when textile art is experiencing a global resurgence, this exhibition reflects how women artists are at the forefront of the movement—merging tradition with contemporary thought in works that resonate with today’s collectors, curators, and audiences alike.