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Gallery XXL kicks off Mumbai Gallery Weekend with a display bursting with joy. 'ON THE CUSP OF THE EIGHTH DAY' is the first solo exhibition by the Aravani Art Project. Opening January 9, 2025, this exhibition will bring the transgender community’s stories into sharp focus.
The Aravani Art Project, a collective of trans and cisgender women, has spent nearly a decade using art as a catalyst for change. With their murals, canvases, and photography, they have turned streets and galleries into spaces of dialogue, resistance, and healing. This exhibition honours their nine-year journey, offering a multi-sensory experience.
The exhibition is rooted in the story of Aravan, a figure from the Mahabharata whose ultimate sacrifice during the war of Kurukshetra serves as a spiritual and cultural anchor for India’s transgender community. Through this mythic lens, ON THE CUSP OF THE EIGHTH DAY examines dualities: day and night, tradition and modernity, sacrifice and rebirth. It makes room for a spectrum of identities and expressions.
The exhibition features an eclectic mix of media, from acrylic and threadwork to archival photography. Highlights include Dismissed and Disobedient, a diptych that confronts societal rejection with defiance, and Auspicious I, an intricate piece blending embroidery and paint to symbolise chosen family and cultural inheritance. Each artwork embodies the collective’s ethos: to fight against systemic inequality and reclaim space through creative expression.
The photography series, created in collaboration with Steevez, offers intimate glimpses into the lives of the community, celebrating the everyday and the ordinary. These works challenge you to see beyond stereotypes, capturing the beauty, strength, and nuance of lives lived authentically.
The exhibition’s title draws from the eighth day of the Koovagam festival. Held annually in Tamil Nadu, the festival re-enacts Aravan’s marriage and sacrifice, symbolising the transgender community’s collective resilience. This narrative is woven into the exhibition as a living, breathing force that informs identity, art, and activism.
ON THE CUSP OF THE EIGHTH DAY opens on January 9, 2025 at Gallery XXL, Colaba.
