This is a moment for South Asian creatives in the diaspora. They are crossing borders, breaking boundaries, making political statements and are highly collaborative all while being playful.

Popadum! takes form as a visual and literary curation, bringing together artists that subvert, question and expand gender within their art. In the artwork, there’s a search for a home, with gazes turned towards the physical body indivisible from gender roles, family ties, and community. This exhibition brings together art that challenges the status quo by using and updating traditional South Asian tropes, idioms, artistic styles, and pop culture.

The art explores the ornamental beauty of South Asia - jewelry, kohl, elaborate outfits - celebrates it, questions it, exaggerates it. What does this outward emphasis on beauty, often holding symbols of gender, religion, caste and class, mean for the artist and the viewer?