Biography
Dr. Mriganka Madhukaillya founded the Media Lab in the Department of Design, IIT Guwahati, where he has been Assistant Professor of New Media Technology and Cinema since 2005.
His background is in quantum mechanics and communication design, and he is also associated with the Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems at IIT Guwahati. He has researched and taught at universities around the world — as DAAD Visiting Professor at Merz Akademie, Stuttgart, and Visiting Professor at the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou — and has served on several managing and advisory boards, including as Juror of Visual Arts at Akademie Schloss Solitude.
He is a founding member of the art collective Desire Machine Collective ↗, nominated for the LUMA Award in 2011, and of the public platform Periferry ↗ (2007–2013), nominated for the Visible Award 2015 at Tate Liverpool. Their work has been shown at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the India Pavilion of the 54th Venice Biennale, MAXXI, the Asia Pacific Triennial and the Shanghai Biennale.
Jump to: Positions | Networks | Publications | Writing on the work | Awards | Exhibitions | Residencies | Lectures | Curation
Positions
7 entries2017Visiting Lecturer, Avtonomi Akadimia, Athens
2016–17Visiting Professor, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou
2016Museum Fellow, India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore
2015–17Juror of Visual Arts, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart
2005–Assistant Professor, New Media Technology & Cinema, Department of Design, IIT Guwahati
—Associated with the Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems, IIT Guwahati
Research networks
2 entriesPublications
11 entriesResearch papers
2025Social media as an emerging fissure in family relations — with I. Shyam, IJRAR Art writing & projects
Writing on the work
33 entriesBooks, chapters & catalogue essays
2016R. T. Blurton — Krishna in the Garden of Assam, British Museum, London
2015Residue — catalogue, 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane
2014R. Hoskote — Everyone Agrees: It’s About To Explode, India Pavilion, Venice Biennale
2012I. Farr — Memory, Documents of Contemporary Art, MIT Press ↗ 2012S. Poddar — “No Ordinary Darkness”, Being Singular Plural, Guggenheim Museum, New York
2011N. Adajania — essay in Everyone Agrees: It’s About To Explode, India Pavilion, Venice Biennale
2011K. Bhaumik — “Residues of the Future / Peripheries of the World”, The Indian Highway V, MAXXI, Rome
Interviews & conversations
2015A Conversation with Desire Machine Collective on Residue
2014K. Bhaumik in conversation with Desire Machine Collective — Synoptique ↗ 2012U. Baer and S. Poddar with DMC — Kaleidoscope Magazine (Guggenheim, New York)
2011S. Poddar — interview with DMC on Trespassers Will (Not) Be Prosecuted
Press & reviews
2017“Invocation – The Open Hand”, India Art Fair, Gujral Foundation, Delhi
2016M. Thirukode — “Noise Life and Periferry”, Vogue Art Report, Winter 2016
2016“Ancient silk cloth from Assam centerpiece of UK exhibition”, Business Standard
2016“Exhibition to explore the rich cultural history of Assam”, The Northeast Today
2015V. Menezes — “Assam beyond Kaziranga”, Condé Nast Traveller
2012M. Schwendener — “Connections That Seem to Erase Boundaries”, The New York Times
2012O. Sand — “Being Singular Plural”, Asian Art
2012S. Poddar — “Genealogies of Sovereignty”, Art Asia Pacific, Issue 77
2012R. Hoskote — “River Bloom”, Art in America
2012S. Ghosh — “The Self-Invested Nation”, Yishu, Vol. 11, No. 5
2011S. Poddar — Art India, Vol. XVI, Issue II
2011A. Dua — “Pushing Boundaries”, Graphiti, The Telegraph
2011“From Periferry to Venice”, Business Standard
2010S. Ghosh — “Periferry – Desire Machine Collective”, Artfair Magazine, Issue 2
2010J. Pariat — “Art Floats”, The Caravan
2010“Alternate Art Spaces”, Take on Art, Vol. 1, Issue 2
2010T. J. Demos — “Being-Political”, Deutsche Guggenheim Magazine 12, pp. 8–13
Awards & nominations
5 entries2017Art Spectrum Awards South Asia — Breaking New Ground, Goa
2015Visible Award (nomination, for Periferry) — Cittadellarte, Pistoletto Foundation, Fondazione Zegna & Tate Liverpool
20153rd Prudential Eye Awards, Singapore
2011LUMA Award (nomination, Desire Machine Collective), Arles
2011Prix Pictet — Power, London
Exhibitions
with Desire Machine CollectiveSolo exhibitions
2018Museums Are Closed at Night — Assam State Museum, Guwahati
2018Inner Lines — Asia Contemporary Art Platform NON, Berlin
2015Noise Life — basis e.V., Frankfurt
2014Noise Life — Galerie Max Mueller and Project 88, Mumbai
2005A Notebook on geography(ies) — Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi
Selected group exhibitions
2018(Dis)Orientation and Dis(Sonance) — Horizon Plaza, with ABARI, Gurgaon
2017Invocation: The Open Hand — Gujral Foundation, India Art Fair, New Delhi; Noise Life, In the Presence of Others — Korea Cultural Centre, New Delhi
2016–17Noise Life I and Dewaal — 11th Shanghai Biennale
2016Invocation — Krishna in the Garden of Assam, British Museum, London
2015Residue — 8th Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane; After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary, 1947–1997 — Queens Museum & Grey Art Gallery NYU, New York; Cut the Sky (media & visual concept, Marrugeku) — Perth International Arts Festival & WOMADelaide, with Australian and European tours
2014Passage: About Transformation — Lothringer_13_Halle, Munich; We send starships, We fall in love: Nameless here for evermore — Khoj, New Delhi
2013Periferry, An Incomplete Balance Sheet, [UN]NATURAL LIMITS — Austrian Cultural Forum, New York; Bhotbhoti tales, Map: Walking, Drifting, Dragging — New Museum, New York; BiennaleOnline ↗ 2012Residue — Experimenta India, London Indian Film Festival, Tate Modern; Intense Proximity, La Triennale, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Being Singular Plural — Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Guwahati Bamboo Walkway — 13th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia
2011Residue — Everyone Agrees: It’s About to Explode, India Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale; Indian Highway IV, MAC Lyon; Indian Highway V, MAXXI, Rome; Between Utopia and Dystopia, MUAC, Mexico City; Biennial of Curitiba; OiFuturo, Belo Horizonte · Periferry — NGBK and AEDES, Berlin; Microclima, Venice · Right to Dissent — The Clark House, Mumbai · Film cycles Paris–Delhi–Bombay — Centre Pompidou, Paris
2010Trespassers Will (Not) Be Prosecuted, Residue — Being Singular Plural, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin; Frieze Film — Frieze Art Fair, London; ID/entity — Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi; 25/75, Subjective Projections — Bielefelder Kunstverein; Biennial of Young Artists, Bucharest
2009The Landscape of Where — Galerie Mirchandani & Steinruecke, Mumbai; Unreal Asia — International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
2008Place — Anant Art Gallery, New Delhi; 48°C Public.Art.Ecology, New Delhi; Video Wednesday — Gallery Espace, New Delhi; Amsterdam-India Festival; India Innings, Experimenta(l) Film, Amsterdam; les 21 instants Vidéo, Marseille; Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Montreal
2007Experimenta 07 and Experimenta Film Festival — Bangalore and Mumbai
2006Impossible India: Parallel Economies in Contemporary Art, Frankfurt; Short Shorts — Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai; Ghost in the Machine — Apeejay Media Gallery, New Delhi; Moving Spirits — Werkleitz Gesellschaft and Franckesche Stiftungen, Halle
2005Globalization@Hunger — SESC Pinheiros, São Paulo, and World Social Forum, Porto Alegre
2004Towards a New Asia: Transnationalism and Northeast India, Guwahati
Residencies & workshops
10 entries2015Gasworks, London
2013New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
2012Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
2010FoAM, Brussels
2007Coast International Artists Workshop, Liverpool
2007Khoj, Srinagar, Kashmir
2006Werkleitz Gesellschaft e.V., Halle
2006Khoj, Kolkata
2005Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi — KHOJ profile ↗ Lectures, panels & performances
20 entries2018The School of Everything (documenta 14) — Interim am Kulturbahnhof, Kassel
2018Auto Ethnography: Philosophy of technology — Guwahati Artist Guild
2016Co-Production and Reviewing the History and Poetics of Spatial Atmospheres — Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart
2016Notebook of Geograph(ies), Unlearning the Given — SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin
2016#assembly of desire, Athens Biennale OMONOIA — Avtonomi Akadimia, Athens
2015The Relation of Authorship to Ownership, (Re-)Constructing Authorship — Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart
2015On the Aesthetic and Epistemic Status of the Brain, Crossing Fibres — Berlin School of Mind and Brain
2013Sovereign table, lecture performance, Museum as Hub — New Museum, New York
2013Untitled, lecture performance, Flying Circus — Theatre Works, Yangon
2013DEFAULT 13: Art, Cities and Regeneration, master class — Ramdom, Lecce
2012Public studio and lecture — Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
2011Lecture performance — Microclima, Venice Biennale collateral event
2010Periferry Project, March Meeting — Sharjah Art Foundation
2010Periferry network, Bite Size Lectures — FoAM, Brussels
2010Exploring living spaces — Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture, Mumbai
2009Unspeakably More: Naming, Deframing (Art after Space) — KHOJ with n.e.w.s.
2009Artists collective — Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi
2008New media art — Mohile Parikh Centre, NCPA, Mumbai
2005“Public Sphere–Private Sphere” symposium — Lalit Kala Kendra, Bhubaneswar
Curation & juries
4 entries2018Assembly of Desire — Majuli Island, Assam
2008Inner Lines: transnationalism, border and network — with Khoj and Panos South Asia, Guwahati
2006Facing the Code — new media exhibition, IIT Guwahati
2015–17Juror of Visual Arts — Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart
