Adwait Singh (b. 1992) is a New Delhi-based curator and theorist engaging affective historiography, queer epistemology, and ethno-cosmologies with the view to qualify predominant understandings and modes of relating to the world. Theirs is an integrative practice that seeks to promote collective care, commensality, and dialogue within the arts ecology. Recent curations include 5th Mardin Biennial (Mardin, 2022) that sought to revise mainstream perceptions on migration, forwarding an economy of renouncement instead, and the 15th edition of the historical Queer Arts Festival (Vancouver, 2022) inviting a mutational politics as a counter to neo-colonial technics of exposure and their monitored replication of the status quo. Other significant projects include 'Mutarerium' (Mumbai, 2019) which questioned the terminology of the Anthropocene by examining a trifecta of more-than-human evolutionary timelines, and 'Caressing History' (New Delhi, 2018) exploring the possibility of a para-textual, embodied historiography. Their writings have appeared in various publications and periodicals.
Education
Awards
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2014-2015 MA Contemporary Art Theory, Goldsmiths, London
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2013-2014 MA History and Philosophy of Art,
Universityof Kent, Canterbury
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2010-2013 BA (Hons) History, Hans Raj College,
Delhi University
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2008-2010 Higher Secondary School Certificate (AISSE) D.P.S. R.K. Puram, New Delhi
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Have been awarded the CLICK Residency in Sofia by the Art Affairs and Documents Foundation and the Goethe-Institute Bulgaria in association with the Credo Bonum Gallery for July-August 2019.
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Have been awarded a curatorial grant by Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation to realize a project at Mumbai Art Room in June- August 2019.
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Have been awarded a residency as a part of the Helsinki International Curatorial Programme (HICP) in partnership with Frame Contemporary Art Finland for June 2018.
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Have been awarded an International Research Programme (Visual Arts) grant by The Danish Arts Foundation in 2017.
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Have been awarded the Art Scribes Award 2017 by the Prameya Art Foundation comprising a month-long residency at La Napoule Art Foundation (France), in a lead up to an exhibition in New Delhi in 2018.
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Was invited for a residency at FRANK, Oslo in March, 2017.
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Was selected for a curatorial fellowship by the Kochi Biennale Foundation for the year 2016-17.
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Was featured in the top international young curators list, in Vogue Art Report 2016 (India).
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Was selected for a research residency in Cuba by the School of Arts, University of Kent for the year 2014 (Spring).
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Was offered a Country Scholarship by the University of Glasgow for the academic year 2014-15 (declined).
Projects
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August - September 2022: Curated for Shrine Empire (New Delhi), 'Forestial Flock' traces the lingering ecopoetics of Sufi and Bhakti movements within contemporary queer-feminist worlds exploring the liaisons between the forest, freedom, and poetry.
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June - September: 15th edition of the Queer Arts Festival (Vancouver BC) - 'Vanishing Act' invited a mutational politics as a counter to neo-colonial technics of exposure and their monitored replication of the status quo.
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May - June 2022: 5th edition of the Mardin Biennial (Turkey) - 'The Promise of Grass/ The Gift of Dispossession' sought to revise mainstream perceptions on migration, forwarding an economy of renouncement instead.
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June – August 2019: 'Mutererium' – a project with emerging artists Mustafa Khanbhai, Priyanka D’Souza and Waylon D’Souza at Mumbai Art Room that examines other-than-human evolutionary timelines, taking the sixth extinction as its point of departure.
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Oct – Nov 2018 : 'Babur ki Gai' – a group exhibition at Latitude 28 and Art District 13 exploring the artistic employment of mythopoeisis and fictioning in the service of historical reconstruction/ reclamation.
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April – May 2018 : 'Caressing History' – a group show investigating the possibility for a body-based historiography at Shrine Empire Gallery, New Delhi.
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Feb – March 2018 : 'Rendering Multitudes: Bhagyanath Chandroth & Piyali Ghosh, Gallery Latitude 28, New Delhi.
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July, Oct – Nov 2017 : 'Dissensus' – a group show with artists from Southeast Asia and beyond, deploying the aesthetic of traditional miniature painting and the inherent politics of scale to showcase a micro-poetics of the stakes borne by civilians whose concerns are overlooked by mainstream media-narratives governed by dominant political regimes. Presented by Latitude28 at the Bikaner House and Punjab Lalitkala Akademi.
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March 2017 : ‘Synapse’ – an interim group show at the culmination of the curatorial residency at Le château de La Napoule, France which materialised sites/shrines where a connection to the largest living assemblage, Gaia could be presenced.
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Feb 2017 – March 2017 : ‘G/rove’ – an international group show examining the mythopoetic imperative of non-anthropocentric modalities of planet sharing at Gallery Latitude 28, New Delhi.
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Dec 2016 – March 2017 : The Students’ Biennale 2016, Kochi
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Sep – Oct 2016 : 'Forlorn Foe: Khadim Ali', Gallery Latitude 28, New Delhi.
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Oct 2016 : Reenactment as a mode of ‘reading’ – a performance art workshop with students from Banaras Hindu University and Shiv Nadar University, Varanasi.
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July – Sep 2016 : 'The Surface of Memory: Sudipta Das', Gallery Latitude 28
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July 2016 : The Falling Leaf: On Entropic Currents (a collaborative proposition by the students from College of Art, New Delhi), Gallery Latitude 28, New Delhi.