In Person: Nandan Ghiya on the Divine Churning

Drawing on various parallel histories of labour, Nandan Ghiya’s sculptures seek to redress their invisibilisation by reimagining myths and iconography. For instance, the work “Manthan,” commissioned for the Liverpool Biennial 2025, depicts the city of Liverpool as the mountain from the myth of the churning of the ocean from the Vishnu Purana, with the snake being represented by the hundreds of labourers who contributed to the city’s growth and development. Along with other recent works by the artist, “Manthan” was on display at Displacement, curated by Rahaab Allana, as part of the tenth edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival held in Goa from 12–21 December 2025. Referencing a wide range of resources and archival materials, Ghiya shares with us his approach to responding to the contemporary moment and thinking through processes of decolonisation and displacement through his multimedia practice, as well as on his works as “found objects” and the need for art to be accessible and inclusive.

Hailing from a family of studio photographers, Nandan Ghiya incorporates found vintage photographs and wooden frames to reflect upon shifts in image, identity and space in the twenty-first-century environment with digital elements as the leitmotif. His recent sculptural directions are based on mythological allegories, which comment on the changing urban landscape and its impact on both, heritage and climate.

(Featured Image: Installation shot from Displacement at Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF), Goa. 2025. Photograph by Philippe Calia and Sunil Thakkar. Image courtesy of Nandan Ghiya and SAF.)

Recorded on 16 December 2025.

To learn more about works at the tenth edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival, watch the episodes of In Person featuring Shaima Al-Tamimi as she discusses her film Don’t Get Too Comfortable (2021) and Ali Arkady as he discusses his monolithographic practice, both of which were also on view as part of Displacement curated by Rahaab Allana.

Also read the two-part interviews with the awardees of the Serendipity Food Matters Grant in 2024, namely Sumaiya Mustafa as she speaks about her project Culinary Cosmopolitanism Through Parotta Shops of Rural and Coastal Tamil Nadu (2025) and Chandan Borgohain and Biswajit Das as they speak about their project Lost Fish Recipes (2025).