Hyderabad’s visual arts landscape has a significant new addition with EkChitra Art Gallery moving into an expansive new space designed for larger exhibitions, multidisciplinary practices and a broader programme of cultural engagement.
Founded by artist and curator Annapurna Madipadiga, EkChitra has evolved over the years through exhibitions, collaborations and projects that brought together contemporary artistic practices with questions of culture, memory, heritage and place. Its new Hyderabad address marks the next stage of that journey — from primarily being a curatorial platform to becoming a larger, permanent cultural space.
The gallery was formally opened in the presence of art connoisseur and collector Anju Poddar; writer and filmmaker Deva Katta; Rao Bahadur director Venkatesh Maha; art director and Chief Principal Temple Architect of Yadagirigutta, Anand Sai; senior artists BA Reddy and Shankar Pamarthy; and members of Hyderabad’s art fraternity.
At the heart of the new EkChitra is space — and what artists can potentially do with it.
Rather than functioning only as a series of conventional exhibition rooms, the gallery has been designed to accommodate painting, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, printmaking, installations, mixed media and performance. Its flexible layout gives curators and artists greater freedom to conceive exhibitions around the requirements of the work instead of adapting the work to limitations of the gallery.
For Hyderabad, where artists are increasingly experimenting across mediums, this flexibility also opens possibilities for exhibitions that blur long-established boundaries between fine art, craft, design and performance.
EkChitra plans to work with emerging as well as established artists, while using the space for artist interactions, workshops, screenings, performances, educational programmes and public conversations.
A permanent printmaking studio is another important component of the gallery. Conceived as a working facility rather than simply an exhibition component, the studio is intended to encourage artists to engage with printmaking while enabling workshops, experimentation, learning and exchange around the medium.
For Annapurna, the larger gallery is a natural progression of what EkChitra has been attempting through its curatorial practice.
“EkChitra has grown organically through exhibitions, collaborations, conversations and relationships with artists and audiences. As the vision expanded, we felt the need for a space that could accommodate not only larger exhibitions but also conversations, workshops, performances, educational programmes and new forms of engagement with art,” she said.
The idea of an art gallery as a place where people can spend time rather than simply walk through an exhibition resonated with filmmaker Venkatesh Maha, who described the new EkChitra as “a beautiful habitat for artistes”.
“During my travels across Europe, I would come across such interactive art spaces and loved spending time there, even attending a workshop whenever possible. I am glad that EkChitra Art Gallery has launched this expansive multidisciplinary space. I look forward to being an active part of the activities planned here in the future,” he said.
Filmmaker Deva Katta expressed a similar hope for the gallery’s role in building a wider cultural community.
“I hope EkChitra Art Gallery develops into a landmark for art and creativity, and goes on to build a strong community of artists and art lovers,” he said.
Transition Marks a New Beginning
Fittingly, EkChitra has chosen to open its new space with an exhibition about change.
Transition: A Continuity to Change — An Ode to Identities in Flux brings together young artists from across India working in textiles, sculpture, painting, ceramics and printmaking.
The exhibition explores identities in transition and the ways in which artistic languages can change while continuing to carry cultural memories and inherited traditions. Through different materials and practices, the participating artists engage with questions of identity, transformation, tradition and contemporary life.
Transition also works as an introduction to the possibilities of the new gallery itself. Textiles can enter into conversations with paintings, ceramics with sculpture and printmaking with other contemporary practices without being confined to rigid categories.
It reflects an idea central to the expanded EkChitra: that a multidisciplinary gallery can create conversations between practices that have historically been separated into fine art, craft, decorative art and other classifications.
A Gallery Looking Beyond Exhibitions
The ambition for the new EkChitra extends beyond its exhibition calendar.
Artist talks and curatorial conversations are planned alongside exhibitions, while workshops and educational programmes are intended to introduce younger and first-time audiences to art. Performances and screenings will allow the programming to extend beyond visual arts.
The gallery also hopes to facilitate collaborations between artists, designers, architects, researchers, collectors and other cultural practitioners. Residencies and knowledge-sharing initiatives are among the programmes being explored for the future.
This approach builds upon Annapurna Madipadiga’s curatorial journey. She has curated more than 25 major exhibitions across Hyderabad, Chennai and New Delhi, developing projects that connect traditional Indian artistic idioms with contemporary concerns.
An important part of EkChitra’s work has focused on the artistic histories and living traditions of the Telugu states — encompassing architecture, literature, music, crafts, temple traditions, Deccani influences and folk practices.
The intention, however, is not simply to look backwards. The gallery is interested in what happens when inherited knowledge encounters contemporary artistic thought.
Taking Art into Hyderabad’s Heritage Spaces
Some of EkChitra’s most ambitious plans will unfold outside the gallery.
Living Temple — Edition 2 will continue an earlier EkChitra initiative that approached heritage spaces as living cultural environments rather than static monuments. The next edition will further explore connections between art, architecture, traditional expression, communities and public engagement.
Keerthanam is being developed as an extensive exploration of the history of art in the Telugu states, bringing attention to regional artistic histories and cultural narratives.
Baoli Art Sangam takes the idea even further by moving contemporary art into Hyderabad’s historic stepwells.
Envisioned as an art biennale centred around these heritage structures, Baoli Art Sangam proposes site-specific artworks, exhibitions, performances, workshops, heritage walks, talks and community programmes. By doing so, it hopes to create conversations around not only art but also water, architecture, ecology, heritage and conservation.
The opening of the new EkChitra, therefore, represents more than an increase in gallery space. It provides Hyderabad’s artists with greater room to make and present work, allows different artistic disciplines to encounter one another and gives audiences more ways of engaging with art beyond simply viewing an exhibition.
MSN Realty and speciality restaurant Anaganaga Telugu Culinary Tales partnered with EkChitra Art Gallery in supporting the launch of the new space.
As Hyderabad’s cultural ecosystem continues to expand, EkChitra’s new chapter is ultimately about creating room — for larger works and exhibitions, certainly, but also for experimentation, conversations, learning and new relationships between artists and audiences.
