“In Bhasha Chakrabarti’s Archive of Divine Possessions, unfolding and refolding become acts of rehearsal, revision, and repair. The artist forages for sensations of touch, belonging, and care, embedded in objects once made, held, and used by women in her family for daily devotional practices.” — Mario D’Souza

As part of her fellowship at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg inherit. heritage in transformation, artist Bhasha Chakrabarti presents her new body of work Archive of Divine Possessions at the TA T.
The exhibition is part of the ongoing cooperation between inherit and the TA T. From 2025 to 2028, fellows of inherit are invited to undertake a studio residency at the TA T, where they develop their research projects and publicly share the outcomes as works in progress.

Conceived as a large-scale installation spanning the rotunda and the adjoining gallery spaces on the ground floor, Archive of Divine Possessions brings together textiles, painting, collage, video, and sound. At its centre is a singular collection of found textiles and objects, which the artist explores through acts of archiving, painting, collage, moving image, and spatial arrangement.

The exhibition opens up questions around memory, touch, care, and the afterlives of objects. Moving between personal history, material transformation, and institutional display, the installation invites visitors to encounter different material and sensory registers: textile surfaces, moving images, sound, and spatial constellations that offer multiple points of entry into the work.

Rather than offering a fixed reading, the exhibition proposes the archive as a space of transformation in which memory, absence, and material knowledge remain in motion.

Events

Tues, May 5, 4 – 6 p.m.: Ground Floor, Rotunda

inherit Lecture Series – Bhasha Chakrabarti: Archive of Divine Possessions

Tues, May 5, 6 – 10 p.m.: Ground Floor, Rotunda

Opening Bhasha Chakrabarti: Archive of Divine Possessions

Easy Read

Bhasha Chakrabarti is a visual artist.
She shows a new exhibition at the TA T.

The exhibition includes textiles, paintings, collage, video, and sound.

At the centre is a collection of found textiles and objects.
The artist works with these materials through painting, collage, video, and acts of archiving.

The exhibition is about memory, care, touch, and what objects can carry over time.
It asks how objects can hold traces of personal histories, emotions, and forms of knowledge.

Visitors move through different materials and sensory experiences, including textile surfaces, moving images, sound, and spatial installations.

The exhibition is part of the cooperation between inherit and the TA T.
Fellows from inherit work at the TA T and share their research with the public.

About the Artist

Bhasha Chakrabarti (b. 1991) is a visual artist from Honolulu, Hawaii. By crossing many genres, her practice engages art-making as a mode of discourse. Her work generates dialogues between subaltern tropes and feminine forms of labour from the global South and the agendas of resistance movements of marginalised communities in the global North.

Chakrabarti graduated with an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art in 2022. The artist has exhibited in solo and group shows at the Kochi Biennale (India), Rhode Island School of Design Museum (USA), Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh), British Textile Biennial (UK), Experimenter (India), Portland Museum of Art (USA), and the Museum of Art and Photography (India). Chakrabarti was the recipient of the 2023 South Asia Artist Prize (SAAI), awarded by the University of California, Berkeley.

Credits

Artist: Bhasha Chakrabarti

Exhibition text (EN): Mario D’Souza (Curator)

A production by:
inherit. heritage in transformation, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Directors: Prof. Dr. Eva Ehninger, Prof. Dr. Sharon Macdonald
Production: Caspar Pichner
Graphic Design: Anne Huber

In cooperation with:
TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater
Curatorial oversight and text translation: Felix Sattler, Paz Ponce
Project management: Lilli Maxine Ebert
Production: Fanny Welz
Communications: Frederike Jaedicke-Nolte

With funding from the:

Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space