Knot by Knot, Tier by Tier

Mrinalini Mukherjee with her work at West Surrey College of Art and Design, UK, 1978, Mrinalini Mukherjee Archive, Courtesy of Asia Art Archive and Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation.

The personal archive of sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee offers a comprehensive view of her artistic practice and creative process spanning over four decades, starting from the 1970s. Drawing on her lecture notes, the title ‘knot by knot, tier by tier’ alludes to the meticulous nature of Mukherjee’s artistic process, as well as how an archive captures it through documentation and digitisation. The digitised archive built by Asia Art Archive provides valuable insights into lesser-known aspects of Mukherjee’s work, showcasing her extensive collection of photo-documentation that captures her art-making process and her visits to significant art historical sites.

Join Noopur Desai, Researcher from Asia Art Archive in India, in conversation with Arnika Ahldag, Head of Exhibitions at MAP. Noopur shares the context for documenting and digitising Mukherjee’s archive, while discussing the research and archiving methods employed over the two years of building it. This session aims to highlight the various lines of inquiry that arose during the digitisation process, as well as exploring how the personal archive serves as a platform for examining questions related to artistic research, the art-making process, interconnected art histories, and the afterlives of the materials in the archive. The session will also feature the modes in which archival materials are brought to life, offering a case study of two recent iterations of the archival exhibition held in New Delhi and Hong Kong.

This event is part of the larger programming for the exhibition VISIBLE/INVISIBLE: Representation of Women in Art through the MAP Collection.