Mumbai: Nilaya Anthology presents four installations on offering

Masaba Gupta’s installation at Nilaya Anthology centres on a red Nandi, a chilli-made bindu and palm prints inspired by alta, the dye used on hands and feet during ceremonies. For Gupta, these elements of domestic worship become symbols of self-preservation. “The greatest offering is the conscious choice to remain joyful, courageous and full of faith,” she says.

The Art of Offering brings together Gupta, architect Ashiesh Shah, Warli artists Mayur and Tushar Vayeda, and artist-designer Prerna Garg. The four installations examine how acts and objects associated with devotion can carry cultural and personal meaning beyond ritual.

Shah takes abhishekam, the ceremonial bathing of a deity, as his starting point, using light and reflection to evoke the Brahmand, or universe. The Vayeda brothers, from Ganjad village in Palghar district, draw on the Warli community’s relationship with earth, seeds and the cycles of human life.

Mayur Vayeda says their work seeks to bring indigenous knowledge systems to people rather than present Warli art as decoration alone. Traditional Warli painting uses pigments from earth and paint made with freshly harvested rice, he says—materials that hold community knowledge alongside the image they create.