Through their eyes
From Shimla—once the summer capital of British India—Vikas Kumar examines how being watched shapes who we are, and what it means to return the gaze.
Published 30 December 2025
This has finished
- On view
- 12 December 2025 – 31 March 2026
- Times
- 10AM to 6PM (Mon to Sunday) Till March 31st, 2026
- Part of
- Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025–26
Where
Vallabhdas Kanji Limited (VKL Warehouse)
Event venue · no 6/951, Bazaar Road, Mattancherry
Being watched creates a continuous negotiation between what we are, who we want to be, and how we are seen. Vikas Kumar invites us to cultivate an active gaze of our own.
Artist
Vikas Kumar (JLN Govt. College of Art, Shimla)
Medium
Performance Prints and Video
This photograph is missing while the site moves.
About
Through their eyes is a performance presented through video, accordion book, and graphic prints. Through imagery and performative gestures, Vikas examines how the gaze influences behaviour and self-perception.
The action of embodying the eye to return the gaze becomes a recurring motif. It confronts viewers while revealing the artist's own vulnerabilities—exposing patterns of observation, judgement, and self-perception.
Living in Shimla, the former summer capital of British India, has made Vikas critical of the colonial gaze and its residues on local people and landscape. This work asks: what happens when we look back?