oceans & lands: drifting senses and knowledges

GA:MA Lab presents Oceans & Lands: Drifting Senses and Knowledges as part of Aghrab Idrāk: Thresholds of Perception, the Institute for Creative Research exhibition at Palazzo Cavanis during La Biennale di Venezia 2026 (open until November 22nd).

The multi-modal installation was born from the collaboration between GA:MA Lab and artist-scholar Dr. Kathyayini Dash, Assistant Professor at Ahmedabad University; it explores transcultural connections and the movement of creativity and knowledge across oceans and lands.

Bringing together objects, fabrics, spices, sounds, and archival traces, the work reflects on drifting as a thoughtful and slow movement between places and knowledge ecologies. Rather than treating oceans as borders, the installation considers them as spaces of connection linking geographies across Asia, Africa, the Gulf, Europe and beyond.

Dr. Dash’s Ears for Other Worlds, organ costume and the Murima family heirloom quilt from Gujarat (India) foreground these ideas through sound, embodied grief, migration, lesser-known histories of African presence across the Indian Ocean. On 1 June 2026, Dr. Dash activated the installation through a live performance, extending the work beyond display into sound and embodied encounter. Together, the installation and performance reflect GA:MA Lab’s commitment to creative research grounded in mobility and minor histories in the Global South.

In the picture, Kathyayini Dash after her performance at Palazzo Cavanis, June 1st, 2026. Photograph by Alberto Pagliuca.