The Ishara Art Foundation has inaugurated Ishara House in Kochi with its first exhibition, Amphibian Aesthetics, which opened earlier December, 2025, and will run until 31 March, 2026. The launch was marked by a weekend of extensive public programming, drawing artists, curators, scholars and members of the public.
Located within the historic Kashi Hallegua House in Mattancherry, Kochi, Ishara House marks a significant geographic and curatorial expansion for the Foundation. More than 3,000 visitors attended the opening, including artists, patrons and leading art critics, with daily footfall reaching up to 4,500 following the launch.
Amphibian Aesthetics examines themes of adaptability, intersectionality and shared vulnerability in the context of escalating geopolitical crises, climate collapse and displacement. Emerging from the urgencies of precarity in the Anthropocene, the exhibition interrogates how artistic practices respond to extinction, migration and ecological instability, while unsettling familiar binaries such as East and West or tradition and modernity.
The group exhibition features works by 12 artists and collectives from India and abroad. Indian participants include Appupen, Shilpa Gupta, Zahir Mirza, Midhun Mohan, Shanvin Sixtous, Ratheesh T., Kabir Project, White Balance and City As A Spaceship (Dr Susmita Mohanty, Rohini Devasher, Sue Fairburn and Barbara Imhof). International artists include Rami Farook from the UAE, Michelangelo Pistoletto from Italy and Dima Srouji from Palestine.
The opening ceremony included remarks by Smita Prabhakar, Founder and Chairperson of the Ishara Art Foundation; Riyas Komu, Artistic Director of Ishara House and Co-Founder of Aazhi Archives; Sasha Altaf, Director of Ishara Art Foundation; and Sabih Ahmed, Projects Advisor at Ishara Art Foundation, followed by a curatorial walkthrough.
The opening weekend featured a series of public programmes held across Kashi Hallegua House and URU Art Harbour. These sessions brought together artists, curatorial advisors and invited speakers to reflect on how art and architecture respond to ecological, social and cultural precarities. During the exhibition opening, White Balance staged Gopalan Solo, a performance that unfolded as a theatrical response to contemporary violence and dehumanisation.
A panel discussion titled Amphibian Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Precarity introduced the philosophical framework of the exhibition. The discussion featured Riyas Komu, Professor C. S. Venkiteshwaran, Professor M. H. Ilias and Professor Amrith Lal, moderated by Sabih Ahmed. On December 14, a session titled Amphibian Aesthetics: Architectural Imaginaries by Dima Srouji, moderated by Anuj Daga, explored how art and architecture respond to historical and political contingencies.
Another panel discussion, Ecology, Migration, and Spirituality, brought together speakers James Onley, Dr Varuni Bhatia and Dr Susmita Mohanty, moderated by Professor M. H. Ilias, to examine how climate collapse and displacement shape contemporary ways of sensing and imagining life. The opening weekend concluded with Akath Kahaani Prem Ki: The Untellable Tale of Love, a music performance by Shabnam Virmani of Kabir Project, accompanied by Shreeparna Mitra, drawing from Kabir and Sufi wisdom traditions.
Speaking about the exhibition, Riyas Komu said, “Amphibian Aesthetics (AA) continues the long-term inquiries offered in the metaphors and movements along and across the sea with the voyage of artists, curators, writers, critics and scholars at Aazhi Archives (AA), presented by Ishara House. The exhibition offers frames to think through the promises of the planet towards imagining ecologies that demand amphibious modes of thinking and being. Emerging from specific interest in Kerala and Indian Ocean regions, AA converges academic research with contemporary art practice, to develop art projects and knowledge missions that flow towards people. Amphibian Aesthetics is an attempt to contemplate upon new space-times in art and research to collaboratively survive our fluid futures.”
Smita Prabhakar, Founder and Chairperson of the Ishara Art Foundation, said: “The Ishara House and its inaugural exhibition, Amphibian Aesthetics, represent a significant step forward in the Foundation’s journey to expand its scope geographically and curatorially. These projects solidify the Foundation’s standing as a truly global institution that creates generative dialogues between South Asian and international contemporary art.”
Kashi Hallegua House, the principal site of Ishara House, was built over 200 years ago in Kochi’s historic Jewish quarter of Mattancherry. The space now functions as a contemporary art hub, reflecting the neighbourhood’s long history of global migration and cultural exchange.
Ishara House is supported by Alserkal Avenue, in association with Galleria Continua, with Aazhi Archives and URU Art Harbour as project partners.
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