Archana Hande

Archana Hande (b.1970, Bangalore, India) is a Bombay-based artist, curator, and organiser. Hande’s multidisciplinary practice reflects on the nuances of growing up in the shadow of colonialism in India and the reproduction of power through industrialisation. She contemplates how we understand oneself in a postcolonial schema. Desire and memory often converge as an interwoven pattern of shadow and lines. Challenging normative ideas, Hande’s work often explores a wide range of social themes, spanning from religious and sociological traditions of arranged marriages to the role of institutions and museums as sites of power.

Hande holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts & Master of Fine Arts in print making from Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, (1986–91) and M.S University, Baroda, India (1991–93) respectively. She was awarded the Charles Wallace India Trust Arts Awards, Residency at the Glasgow School of Arts (2000), and a research residency at Pro Helvetia, Switzerland (2010). She participated in the Spaced and Asialink reciprocal exchange program to develop the research project spaced 2: future recall, which was shown at the Western Australian Museum (2014–16). Hande has had several solo exhibitions, including Weaving Light: Bangalore (2024); I am a Landscape Painter, Bombay (2015); The Golden Feral Trail, Perth and Laverton, Western Australia (2014); among others. She has participated in numerous international and national group exhibitions, including most recently: Anka Banka, Bengal Biennale (2024-25); In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, Kochi-Muziris Biennale05 (2022–23); Thinking Historically in the Present, Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023); This Too, is a Map, 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, 2023; amongst many others since 2003.  Additionally, Hande researched, photographed and designed the book Multiplicities: Urban Cultures of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (2021).