Material Affinities and Tropical Dreams presents a previously unseen body of work in Brazil, bringing together artists of South Asian descent under the curatorship of Mario D’Souza, Director of Programming and Exhibitions at the Kochi Biennale Foundation, India. 

Featuring works by Anwar Jalal Shemza (1928, India–1985, England), Ayesha Sultana (1984, Bangladesh), Balraj Khanna (1940, India–2024, England), and Lubna Chowdhary (1964, Tanzania), the exhibition seeks to reflect on the affinities that emerge from the postcolonial experience — which mobilizes strands of modernism and local traditions — between South Asia and Brazil. 

“Distilled from (and inspired by) the expression ‘Tropical Modernism’, fusing the states of ‘being tropical’ and ‘becoming modern’, the exhibition draws on references from deep time – from an age when stars and line-drawings were the first civilizational languages, to the formation of new aesthetics and nationalist vocabularies in the second half of the 20th century. Examining the affinities throughout our regions, and here in Brazil where these works serve as an introduction to the context, this exhibition examines the transmission of signs and images as they entwine with ancient pasts and possible futures.” writes D’Souza. 

By bringing together artists whose trajectories traverse distinct continents and temporalities, Material Affinities and Tropical Dreams expands the dialogue on cultural identities and artistic languages, proposing an encounter of plural modernisms that creates echoes and dissonances between South Asia and Brazil.