Modern Romance and Other Deaths: Apnavi Makanji

21 November - 20 December 2024

TARQ is pleased to announce Apnavi Makanji’s (they/them) fourth solo exhibition at the gallery, featuring an all new body of works in graphite, collage, and video. Centred on themes of queer ecology, this show will be their first after being awarded the prestigious FEMS Prize in 2024¹.

¹ Fondation Édouard et Maurice Sandoz established a prize for artistic creation amounting to CHF 100,000 in memory of the two Sandoz brothers whose names it bears, who were artists and patrons of the arts. For its 2024 edition, the prize was awarded for painting on the theme: “Gardens, Flowers, and Herbaria”.
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Apnavi Makanji, APPROPRIATION DISINFORMATION – NATURE AND THE BODY POLITIC Series: L'Orient, 2024
Building on their series, Appropriation Disinformation- Nature and the Body Politic², Makanji negotiates with the artificial notions of ownership of natural resources through political borders by using historical maps, overlayed with collaged organisms. They see maps as cartographies of conquest, that do not reflect reality, nature, vulnerability, other species or terrain. Here, Makanji also looks at the altered migration patterns of species driven by climate change, highlighting the interconnectedness of these issues. The idea is to subvert maps as colonial instruments of extraction by covering them with the very subjects that they precisely lack or only display in words or numbers.

² Initially shown at the Dhaka Art Summit 2020 titled Seismic Movements
Simultaneously, Makanji turns to graphite on paper in which they create the Parallax series, featuring exo-planets that appear to be made of water, ether and other elements. These nebulous orbs are symbolic of the cycle of life, death and rebirth. The underlying theme of this series is the critical role that the elements play in sustaining life, evoking the essence of water as a life-giving force.
- Apnavi Makanji, PARALLAX series: GHOST PALM, 2024
- Apnavi Makanji, PARALLAX series: UMBILICUS , 2024
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Apnavi Makanji, PARALLAX series: EYE, 2024
This theme resonates deeply with Makanji’s personal connection to water, shaped by their life in Geneva, Switzerland, where they often swim in the Rhône river and engage in meaningful interactions with their environment. This exploration is further expanded in their video works, where a more abstract approach allows for deeper engagement with a sense of isolation and complete immersion in water.
The exhibition is accompanied by an essay by Emilia Terracciano who writes, “Water, Makanji reminds us, joins together histories, geographies, and biological life forms – forms that can be said to feel and remember in ways that are unique and distinct from anthropogenic systems of knowing, thus undoing our assumed superiority. Haunted by past, present, and future destruction, Modern Romance and Other Deaths is a prescient reminder that beautiful and terrifying monsters live inside and amongst us all...”
- Apnavi Makanji, LEMAN FISH series: TENCH, 2023
About the Artist

Apnavi Makanji was born in Mumbai and moved to Geneva during their formative years.

Their body of work spans the mediums of drawing, collage, installation and video. Their preoccupations center around displacement and queer ecologies with an emphasis on decolonization, botany, explorations of memory and the idea of home.

They have been awarded The Prix Fondation Édouard et Maurice Sandoz 2024 for their project titled K(NOT)WEED.

Their most recent solo show titled PSYCHOPOMP was presented at TARQ, Mumbai in 2023. Their other solo exhibitions include Soil as Witness | Memory as Wound, TARQ, Mumbai, 2019; Travails of the Wandering Memory Seed, Galerie Félix Frachon, Brussels, 2016; and Domus Vulgus, The Guild NY, New York 2010.

In 2021 they participated in a two-month residency at the Botanical Garden of Geneva. They took part in the Dhaka Art Summit (February, 2020) and have participated in several group shows including Claustrophobia Alpina, Forde, Geneva (2022); Nature You Are, Theatre Benno Besson in collaboration with Centre d’Art Contemporain Yverdon, Yverdon-Les-Bains (2022); Heat, Le Labo, Geneva (2022); (ME)MORY, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi (2021); Remembering the Present, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi (2018); Carnets, Halle Nord, Geneva (2017); Raving Disco Dolly on a Rock ‘n’ Roll Trolley, Envoy Enterprises, New York (2014); Considering Collage, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai (2013).

Makanji lives and works in Geneva.