Sea of Fists by Prabhakar Pachpute is an exhibition that reinterprets the gestures and motions central to social movements. Now on display in India for the first time, the immersive installation draws inspiration from the Indian farmers’ protests of 2017–2018.
Through dream-like landscapes and anamorphic figures, Pachpute highlights resistance emerging from the environmental and social impacts of resource extraction. Coming from a mining and farming community in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district, the artist reflects on his origins to examine conditions for vitality, justice, and communal solidarity. The work invites audiences to envision new social realities, fostering reflection on energy, labor, community, and ecological justice.
Prabhakar Pachpute
Prabhakar Pachpute is a Pune-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice is deeply influenced by his Maharashtrian origins, including familial ties to farming and coal mining. Known for his compelling use of charcoal alongside drawing, light installations, stop-motion animation, and sculpture, Pachpute examines the physical, social, and ecological impacts of extractive industries globally.
By combining surrealist motifs with landscapes and figurative portraiture, Pachpute critically explores labor, environmental degradation, and societal transformation. His immersive, site-specific works merge personal memory with broader research, transcending regional boundaries while highlighting global concerns.
Pachpute’s practice fosters dialogue on sustainability, social justice, and resistance, offering poignant insights into humanity’s relationship with nature and industrial progress through a visually compelling and conceptually layered lens.
Room to Move
A conversation on employing the feminine properties of mutability to shape spaces for movement(s) as we shape our bodies within them
Drawn by Motion
A charcoal drawing workshop focused on figurative inquiry and play-based process to form figures using gestures
Play it by Here
An improvisatory sonic survey and immersive listening session inquiring into Calcutta’s qualities of inhabitability