Fragments & Fractures: An Exclusive Faculty Exhibition by Parul Institute of Fine Arts

The city of Vadodara, often celebrated as the cultural capital of Gujarat, is once again abuzz with artistic energy as Parul Institute of Fine Arts, Parul University, presents its much-anticipated faculty exhibition titled Fragments & Fractures. The exhibition, hosted at Andromeda Studio & Art Space, Gotri, showcases the creative brilliance of the faculty members whose practices span across diverse mediums, aesthetics, and philosophies of art.

Running from 3rd to 5th October 2025, this exhibition offers audiences an extraordinary opportunity to experience how pedagogy and practice intersect in contemporary art-making. Curated by Ms. Tarushikha Shaktawat (Assistant Professor, Parul Institute of Fine Arts), Fragments & Fractures explores the tensions and harmonies between disjointed realities, fractured identities, and fragmented histories — reflecting the layered complexities of today’s world.

Participating Faculty Artists

The exhibition features works by an accomplished lineup of artists from the institute:

• Dr. Jayaram Poduval (Dean & Director)
• Ajay Sharma (Assistant Professor)
• Mangesh Manekar (Assistant Professor)
• Alok Prabhakar (Assistant Professor)
• Pritam Das (Assistant Professor)
• Shatrughan Thakur (Assistant Professor)
• Jignesh Makwana (Assistant Professor)
• Sanjay Yadav (Assistant Professor)
• Nilesh Kumawat (Assistant Professor)
• Noor Fatma (Assistant Professor)
• Aakanksha Masih (Assistant Professor)
• Rohit Chandwaskar (Assistant Professor)

Each of these artists has contributed not only as educators shaping the next generation of visual practitioners but also as practicing artists pushing the boundaries of contemporary expression.

Curatorial Note

The exhibition Fractures and Fragments brings together a constellation of artistic practices that explore multiplicity, memory, and perception. The title invokes both the literal act of breaking apart and the metaphorical ruptures that shape individual and collective experience. Fractures are not only marks of damage but also openings—points of entry into new possibilities of seeing and understanding. Fragments, in turn, embody the incomplete, the layered, and the remembered, carrying within them traces of what once was and the potential of what may emerge. The participating artists reflect diverse approaches and mediums, yet share a common engagement with the fractured nature of contemporary life. Their works move between personal memory and shared history, between nostalgia and critical reflection, between the intimate and the societal. Some pieces dwell on the vulnerability of surfaces, materials, and forms, while others evoke the fragmentation of thought, identity, or cultural belonging.

In looking at their surroundings and the world they inhabit, these artists reveal how perceptions are shaped by discontinuities—by what is lost, what remains, and what is reimagined. The exhibition becomes a space where multiple practices intersect, each fragment contributing to a larger, dynamic whole.

The title invokes rupture and dislocation, yet it equally points toward the generative potential of fragmentation—the ways in which broken surfaces, disjointed narratives, and partial memories become sites of meaning-making.

The fragment therefore becomes not an accident of history but the very structure of knowledge, interpretation, and representation. In contemporary art practice, this insight translates into works that foreground instability, openness, and provisionality.
Within this framework, the fragment becomes a connective tissue, allowing partial, contingent relations to emerge between artists, audiences, and communities. The participating artists mobilize diverse strategies to interrogate the fractured dimensions of their lived environments—social, political, psychological, and material. Their practices reflect on the instability of surfaces, the incompleteness of memory, and the fragmentation of perception. Some works excavate nostalgia as a fractured relationship to time, while others confront the fragmentary nature of collective history, exposing its gaps and silences. Fractures and Fragments thus positions fragmentation not as a deficit to be repaired but as a critical condition to be inhabited. By assembling heterogeneous practices, the exhibition stages multiplicity as both subject and method: a curatorial framework that resists singularity and instead foregrounds the coexistence of divergent voices, gestures, and perspectives.

– Tarushikha Shaktawat

Why This Exhibition Matters

Vadodara has long been synonymous with art education and practice, thanks to the legacy of the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU Baroda and now with institutions like Parul Institute of Fine Arts carrying forward the torch. Fragments & Fractures is significant because it demonstrates how contemporary art education is not confined to classrooms. Instead, it is rooted in practice, critique, and engagement with wider audiences.

For students and young artists, seeing their mentors present in such a forum bridges the gap between pedagogy and practice. For audiences, it is an invitation to witness the often-overlooked creative output of those who are usually behind the scenes as guides and educators.

Exhibition Details

Dates: 3rd – 5th October 2025
Venue: Andromeda Studio & Art Space, 501, Samnvay West, Opp. Anand Hospital, Gotri, Vadodara

This showcase promises to be a significant cultural event in Vadodara’s contemporary art calendar — one that celebrates fragments, embraces fractures, and ultimately reflects the  spirit of resilience and creativity.