Hekh hosted “Imagings Gatherings: Collectives and Beyond in Kashmir” on 21st February, 2026, with Salman B. Baba, Khursheed Ahmad, Saqib Butt and Sandip K. Luis.
Through presentations, and performances- the conversations reflect on the existing independent artistic intervention in Kashmir and how their existence becomes relevant in current times. They unpack the ‘trojanness’ of such interventions, moving into people come together under conditions of precarity, surveillance, infrastructural voids and fragmentation- and how such coming-together can present a possible framework for collectives that is sustainable over time.
About the Collaborators:
Sandip K. Luis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History & Art Appreciation at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He received his Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Visual Studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (2019). His areas of research and publication include theories of the avant-garde and Third World modernism, biennials, and the historiography of global contemporary art.
Saqib Mohammad Butt is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice navigates the interstices of memory, political geography, and embodiment. Born in Srinagar, Kashmir, and currently based in New Delhi, he holds a Master’s degree in Applied Art and a PhD in Visual Arts, and teaches in the Department of Painting at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
Khursheed Ahmad, born into a family of folk artists called ‘Bhand’ in Kashmir, who over the centuries have played different roles in public theatrical spaces. His interests in art practice lie in multiple disciplines i.e. performance, text, sound, drawing, found object, and photography. He has pursued a bachelor’s degree (painting) from Kashmir University and completed a master’s degree in Visual Arts from Ambedkar University Delhi in 2018.
Salman B Baba is a visual artist who lives and works in Kashmir. He has a MA in Visual Arts from Ambedkar University and BFA in Applied Arts from Jamia Millia Islamia, ND. His practice responds to the discourses surrounding Kashmiri landscape and subjecthood which has led him to explore ideas around sovereign power politics.