New Delhi, Contemporary artist Kulpreet Singh has won the Hayward Gallery/Kochi-Muziris Biennale Award and will get to present his first institutional solo exhibition in the UK.
Singh’s project “Indelible Black Marks” will open at Hayward Gallery HENI Project Space on June 16 and continue until August 2, co-presented by Kochi-Muziris Biennale and supported by TNQ Foundation.
“Kulpreet Singh’s work, exhibited at the 6th Kochi-Muziris Biennale, emerges from a deep engagement with land, labour and the agricultural landscapes of Punjab. Its visual and sonic force speaks to the environmental and human consequences of extraction and depletion. We are delighted that the Hayward Gallery/Kochi-Muziris Biennale Award will support this important presentation of his work in London,” Jitish Kallat, President, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, said in a statement.
The art project features a film installation examining the interconnection between climate change and the agrarian crisis. Drawing from his lived experience as a farmer, the Patiala-based artist and farmer stages the ritual of stubble burning, in which crop residue is set ablaze to prepare fields for a new cultivation cycle.
Accompanied by an abstract five-panel painting created using fire and stubble ash, the work documents performers carrying large canvases across burning fields, reflecting on ecological degradation and the exploitation of land.
“Presenting my work in London, particularly at the Hayward Gallery, is deeply meaningful for me. These centres are key to a global discourse on art, and to show my work there also allows me to put forth issues that are not confined to one place but resonate across the world – about land, environment and farming.”
“At the core of my work is a guiding philosophy from Sikhism that feels especially relevant today: Through remembering the Divine , may one remain in high spirits , and in your will, may there be well-being for all ,” Singh said.
The presentation is curated by Roden chief curator Rachel Thomas with curatorial assistant Ananya Jain at Hayward Gallery.
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