Public Installations at the NSIC Grounds Pull the Audiences in to an Interactive and Contemplative Display
Outdoor Art Projects in the India Art Fair feature large-scale installations in outdoor spaces, providing immersive and media diverse artworks that captivate and engage visitors. The India Art Fair has been a platform for exploring modern and contemporary art in South Asia, exhibiting artworks and installations that break the mould of contemporary art around the world.
This year, new and established artists shared their artworks with the people attending the trade fair and tackling themes of marginalised histories, memory and modernity, environment and technology, body and space.
Art installations in public spaces can change the relationship of the body experiencing the space it inhabits. With the help of art, spaces can be transformed and repurposed to enforce a contemplative understanding of contemporary issues. It establishes a relationship that is not mere passing, that of a body moving from one place to another but unknowingly nudges you towards the presence of the piece of art. The transformative power of public art affects both body and space.
India Art Fair 2025 had many such art installations as part of their Outdoor Art Projects. The opportunity to interact with artists and their visions was diverse. From Yogesh Bharve, to Bhushan Bombale, to M. Pravat, the artists used various mediums to create pieces that were unique and eye catching in their grand-ness. The public gathering was so large, the crowd so diverse and attentive, that the outdoor spaces were filled with people hovering next to the Public art installations.
Here are a few pictures of the art installation that were part of the four day long international trade fair. The Fair not only promoted art and its marketing privileges but had immersive art installations for the people who were into it for voyeuristic satisfaction of looking at art.
MUSIC FROM THE METAL TRUCK
A production of Lexicon Steels Limited, the contemporary art installation was made using second hand cement truck from a chassis fabricator and metal scraps collected over the past 7 months from Lexicons facility in Ahmedabad. The monumental mobile artwork was surrounded by people producing sounds from the metal truck by tapping it, the music could be heard from far.
Making Yourself Comfortable
This outdoor installation uses discarded plastics and fabrics to reflect on the transformative power of imagination, and the ecological future of our planet. Supported by IAF artists-in-residence programme the crochet installation was a meditation on care, labour and future visions. The Nilgiri falls, that our photographer overheard the Artist calling the cushions were not meant for food, but they nevertheless invoked such a comfort in its interaction.
Remembering Ambedkar And His Words
Supported by Art and Charlie, The Ambedkarite artists displayed his installation with a social message. Inspired by James Baldwin, Yogesh’s installation uses Ambedkar’s writings to confront ongoing social issues, urging viewers to engage with the urgency of change.
Watching The Veiled Statue Up Close
The installations note reads, “Upon entering, the viewer finds themselves stepping into a space that envelope, leaving everyone else behind”.
The grand installation presents a veiled statue inside of a glass cubicle. People wait patiently for a chance to have a personal, multi-layered experience with the contemporary public art piece.
Memory of a Memory of a Memory
Umesh’s artwork and public installation was the embodiment of the silent erosion of agricultural heritage, where tools ones imbued with purpose and knowledge now lie idle, stripped of their utility and meaning. The poetry on the wall, in Bhojpuri combined material with the rhythmic intentionality of a the written word to contemplate the cost of this disconnection. It invited the viewer to remember of the fields, the agricultural culture and bison of the vernacular.
Hanging Out On The Pipes
Drawing from personal experiences, Intiyaz recreates his childhood memories in this installations made of waste metal pipes. Entangled in the maze of water pots, the artist and his siblings spent many a day trekking between taps, burdened by the uncertainty when their water shortage would end.
We watch the tiny acrobats with buckets on their heads hanging against the maze-like installation. The contemporary art piece invoked the water crises in the lives of many Indians.
Apart from the above installations, many other artworks were part of the fair, each one displaying a layered message.
Image courtesy- Babra Shafiqi
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