Akshay Mahajan

Join us for a walkthrough of ‘Roots of the Earth’ with both artists, Prabhakar Kamble and Akshay Mahajan, and Sumesh Sharma. Friday 11 July 5pm at JC Mumbai — #PrabhakarKamble #AkshayMahajan #ContemporaryArt

Akshay Mahajan Photo London x Nikon Emerging Photographer Award - 2026 | Shortlist #akshaymahajan #photolondon #nikonemergingphotographeraward Broken Provenance is an ongoing body of work by Akshay Mahajan that examines the dispersal of Indo-Portuguese and Goan devotional objects through auction catalogues, private collections and colonial systems of description. Combining photographed sites in Goa with collaged fragments of displaced objects and catalogue language, the work treats provenance not as a stable history of ownership, but as a broken record of extraction, faith, commerce and forgetting. Each image becomes a speculative reliquary, allowing fragments of loss to re-enter the landscape from which they have been severed. Broken Provenance III: Sculpted separately for insertion of glass eyes. A chair is placed before a roadside shrine, while an auction-catalogue phrase enters the landscape like a fragment of anatomical description. The object is understood through its parts, its gaze, and the violence of being catalogued. Credit : Akshay Mahajan, Broken Provenance III: Sculpted separately for insertion of glass eyes., from Broken Provenance, 2025-ongoing. Courtesy the artist.

#photolondon 13 - 17 May 2026 Akshay Mahajan Shortlist of #nikonemergingphotographeraward Broken Provenance is an ongoing body of work by Akshay Mahajan that examines the dispersal of Indo-Portuguese and Goan devotional objects through auction catalogues, private collections and colonial systems of description. Combining photographed sites in Goa with collaged fragments of displaced objects and catalogue language, the work treats provenance not as a stable history of ownership, but as a broken record of extraction, faith, commerce and forgetting. Each image becomes a speculative reliquary, allowing fragments of loss to re-enter the landscape from which they have been severed. #akshaymahajan @lecercle Akshay Raj Singh Rathore #akshayrajsinghrathore @akshayrajsingholinja Akshay Raj Singh Rathore has been researching and gathering in-depth knowledge of the farming crisis in India, its global connections and its consequences. He remains actively involved in local politics to understand the micro-phenomenon of global capitalism. How food reaches western countries’ tables, how it affects the Global South are some of his concerns brought forward through his practice. He has travelled and worked extensively, from residing in France for over six years. Since 2012, he has initiated the Aulinjaa Research Laboratory, which is now going to activate a permaculture farm in his native village, working as a centre for sharing knowledge on good agricultural practices, ancient knowhow, involving primarily the local villagers and ecosystems. #revatisharmasingh @revati_sharma_singh Counting grains through photography Revati Sharma Singh documents the loss of nutritional sovereignty in the Himalayan Rice terraces around Kangra. Resistant variants of rice and pulses have been overshadowed by urea dependent and genetically engineered variants aggressively marketed by seed corporations. The war has revealed echoes of how the military industrial complex has an iron grip on agriculture that is heavily dependent on fertilisers. The apocalypse which we face threatens the food security of billions who have come to depend on industrial practices in agriculture.

can you do me a small favour? try to enter the picture you are not alone there. you are with the other friends the uprooted casuarina. the toy between rock and tide. the bed still shaped by a body. sheets like signals. small gardens breathing behind glass. a painting alters the world you return to a photograph lets you borrow another’s light time travel is often wonderful & almost always free not to escape alone but to find each other there

i read at least ten lines before i realised the question was not about photography at all it was about why i keep needing a pane of glass between myself and the world the camera does not bring me closer it only teaches me to recognise the distance perhaps every photograph is a small rehearsal for disappearance a way of saying goodbye before anyone has left. adieu

#vippreviewphotolondon Counting grains through photography Revati Sharma Singh documents the loss of nutritional sovereignty in the Himalayan Rice terraces around Kangra. Resistant variants of rice and pulses have been overshadowed by urea dependent and genetically engineered variants aggressively marketed by seed corporations. The war has revealed echoes of how the military industrial complex has an iron grip on agriculture that is heavily dependent on fertilisers. The apocalypse which we face threatens the food security of billions who have come to depend on industrial practices in agriculture. Akshay Mahajan will be showing a photograph from the series ‘Broken Provenance’ which is an ongoing body of work that examines how dis-placed devotional objects from the Portuguese empire reveal the politics of race, faith and movement across the sea. His starting point is Goa on India’s west coast, which was a Portuguese colony from the sixteenth century until 1961 and a key node in the Indian Ocean trade between Europe, Africa and Asia. Akshay Raj Singh Rathore has been researching and gathering in-depth knowledge of the farming crisis in India, its global connections and its consequences. He remains actively involved in local politics to understand the micro-phenomenon of global capitalism. How food reaches western countries’ tables, how it affects the Global South are some of his concerns brought forward through his practice. A single grain of rice yields more that 300 grains in a kernel and can also tip the scales towards peace. #revatisharmasingh #akshaymahajan #akshayrajsinghrathore #strangershousegallery

Counting grains through photography Revati Sharma Singh documents the loss of nutritional sovereignty in the Himalayan Rice terraces around Kangra. Resistant variants of rice and pulses have been overshadowed by urea dependent and genetically engineered variants aggressively marketed by seed corporations. The war has revealed echoes of how the military industrial complex has an iron grip on agriculture that is heavily dependent on fertilisers. The apocalypse which we face threatens the food security of billions who have come to depend on industrial practices in agriculture. Akshay Mahajan will be showing a photograph from the series ‘Broken Provenance’ which is an ongoing body of work that examines how dis-placed devotional objects from the Portuguese empire reveal the politics of race, faith and movement across the sea. His starting point is Goa on India’s west coast, which was a Portuguese colony from the sixteenth century until 1961 and a key node in the Indian Ocean trade between Europe, Africa and Asia. Akshay Raj Singh Rathore has been researching and gathering in-depth knowledge of the farming crisis in India, its global connections and its consequences. He remains actively involved in local politics to understand the micro-phenomenon of global capitalism. How food reaches western countries’ tables, how it affects the Global South are some of his concerns brought forward through his practice. A single grain of rice yields more that 300 grains in a kernel and can also tip the scales towards peace. #revatisharmasingh #akshaymahajan #akshayrajsinghrathore #strangershousegallery #photolondon

For the monsoon-born, plaster is never only plaster. It keeps its own weather, and sometimes its own garden: Cladosporium darkening the wall into a murky, mineral bloom, a kind of living paint fed by damp, salt, and rain. What the untrained eye might dismiss as detritus or ruin is often another layer of decoration: fungal, mineral, gathering over older painted garlands still dimly visible beneath the grime. A blue tarp sags nearby, holding last night’s rain in its folds. A silver swan waits against this wall, too polished for the damp, yet already being claimed by it. Birds shift in their stacked rooms. Cats pause in the lane with the grave entitlement of those who know the place better than we do. Here, even decay seems to arrive ornamented, often alive under a microscope.

It is with great pleasure that we announce the release of our third zine, Udikan (اُڈیکاں). “We had just been given the honour of being scribes. We didn’t have the stomach for it — yet. Time is, well... so human.” Featuring contributions from Nad E Ali, Akshay Mahajan, and Zeerak Suhail, alongside the poem “The Noble Recorders” by Joshua Muyiwa, this issue sits with the ache of waiting, the longing held in bodies, borders, and the spaces between languages. Limited copies are available, so don’t wait to get your hands on one. Available in two editions: a larger format measuring 5.5 × 7.5 inches, and a pocket-sized edition measuring approximately 3.75 × 5.5 inches. Each copy is staple bound, printed on uncoated paper, and features full colour throughout. A special print accompanies select copies while supplies last. Special thanks to Hassam Khattak for their contributions toward this issue. Edited by @nadealy and @zeeraksuhail . DM to order or inquire about pricing. @lecercle @silverbangled @zeeraksuhail @nadealy @hassamkt

In the Indian heat, the sky turns the colour of potassium permanganate. The Assam Tribune on the verandah, a bell, and beyond the frame the Brahmaputra: an old man in a false beard, drifting past on a swan

Meet the Artist: Akshay Mahajan Akshay Mahajan is an artist and photographer from India whose work explores photography as a site of memory, myth, and historical rupture. Moving between images, archives, text, and collage, his practice reflects on postcolonial cities, vernacular histories, and the afterlives of empire. He is particularly interested in how photographs shape personhood, collective memory, and the politics of representation. Mahajan’s work has been shown internationally, including at the Bamako Encounters, Cairo Biennale, Athens Photo Festival, and Encontros da Imagem. He was named Foam Talent 2023–24, was runner-up for the Aperture Portfolio Prize, and won the Nera di Verzasca Prize in 2024. - Project: “to die is to be turned to gold” An in-progress work that explores the once-colonial city of Bombay (now Mumbai) through the eyes of a young maker of commercial sculptures. In search of artistic inspiration and fortune, the protagonist navigates a city where, for over 300 years, many have arrived with similar dreams—some finding success, others meeting death. Their bodies rest in Sonapur, “the city of gold,” reflecting the saying that to die is to be turned to gold. The city’s people become the protagonist’s primary inspiration—observed in cafés, remembered, and reassembled into new forms. Faces and fragments merge, reflecting both personal and collective histories, while subtly confronting lingering colonial ghosts. Through photographs that move between street scenes, portraits, architecture, and details, the work examines Mumbai as a layered, sculptural landscape—marked by failed futures, post-colonial tensions, and social inequalities. From Nehruvian modernist relics to improvised housing of the urban poor, each structure reveals histories, contradictions, and traces of imagined futures. The project unfolds as a visual sequence that captures the shifting, fragmented experience of the city and its many identities. Visit FOTO Bali Festival 2025 @nuanucreativecity 3 June – 12 July 2026 #FOTOBaliFestival

To Die is to Be Turned to Gold has been shortlisted for the PhMuseum 2026 Photography Grant. Carried by Bombay I’m very grateful to @phmuseum , and to the jury @pimcharlottecotton @valenzuela_escobedo @carmen.winant @rafal.milach for their time and attention. Really nice to see many friends on the shortlist as well, congratulations to everyone.