This exhibition of Khageswar Rout at Project 88 is a showcase of the tactility of terracotta

For Sree Banerjee Goswami, director of Mumbai’s Project 88, hosting an exhibition rooted in physicality was a deliberate endeavour, given the extended periods of distance and solitude. “We opened the show when things were looking a little better. It had to be very tactile; something that brought in the desire to touch, which we couldn’t do all these days,” says Goswami. Cue Khageswar Rout’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, which in Goswami’s own words, is a “show that needs to be experienced”. Annex and Dissever witnesses a blend of both organic and manmade elements to address humankind’s arbitrary need to comprehend and categorize a realm as limitless as nature. Rout’s examination of nature’s perishables such as seeds, fruits, flowers, barks of trees—the works—become the central focus of his study, which, according to Goswami, is “captured in a very fragile way through the use of terracotta. We wanted to look at works which ask you to reconsider the contemporary significance of craftsmanship.”