Rituals of Impermanence
Jayesh Sharma
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 5: When we enter spaces that hold thick layers of the past, we are visually confronted with little more than emptiness and textures. Both have so many stories to tell.
Jayesh Sharma has immersed himself in such spaces for the last eight years capturing the forlorn akhadas and its kushti practitioners. However, when the subject itself is one that is passing away or dying before one’s eyes, the act of photography becomes an act infused with deep emotion and underlined always with a deep sense of loss and pain. The unavoidable question that confronted him over these years has been of identifying the protagonist of his photographs. He has seen the human protagonists fast dwindling and then finally almost disappearing. The role of the protagonist he then realized was shifting from the human to the empty spaces. The silent structures were left to alone echo the old stories. And when this role of the protagonist then further shifted from the spaces to just the sense of loss and ‘passing’ itself, the overwhelming question of what to frame and what to photograph is what Jayesh Sharma’s camera tries to seek it out.
It seems to hide in the corners of the structures turning itself into dark and mourning spaces, it shows up on the bodies and skins of the last wrestlers in their tired and worn-out bodies, it spreads and displays itself on the decrepit walls in layers as neglect and mold. Un-rejoiced, un-lit, un-rejuvenated. It holds on stubbornly to its own disintegration in a last cry as, a ritual of emptiness and perhaps defeat. In these sensitive pictures we see how all the protagonists merge once again before this long tradition will forever pass – the skin tones, the wall textures, the spaces. And as if in a last brave act, the few stalwarts merge with the sacred spaces they venerated for centuries, choosing to be together till the very end, performing a ritual of emptiness and acceptance of a final exit.
- Exhibition Title: Rituals of Impermanence
- Artist/Photographer: Jayesh Sharma
- Curator: Anurag Kanoria
- Exhibition Design: Bacteria Design
- Venue: Nine Fish Art Gallery, Mumbai
- Exhibition Dates: 6th Dec 2025 – 5th Jan 2026 (10.30 am to 7.30 pm)
Address: Nine Fish Art Gallery
The New Great Eastern Mills, 25-29 Dr. Ambedkar Road, Inside Salsette 27 Compound, Near Rani Baug, Byculla East, Mumbai 400027.
Website: www.ninefish.in
About Nine Fish Art Gallery:
Located within the charming precincts of a historic textile mill in Central Mumbai, Nine Fish seeks to explore connections between multiple art-related endeavours. Envisioned as part of the offering will be shows that cover a gamut of genres: painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation, photography, video, documentary practice, performance and new media. Nine Fish aims to lend its space in support of art and craft practices, while bringing within its ambit research / documentation projects in the field of architecture and design.
About Jayesh Sharma:
Jayesh Sharma is a visual artist and photographer whose practice explores embodiment, rituals, and the fragile borders between permanence and disappearance. Working across documentary, portraiture, and conceptual photography, Sharma builds long-term projects rooted in physical traditions and environmental atmospheres. His eight-years of work on exploring an embodied legacy, documents the vanishing worlds of Indian Kushti wrestling through intimate portraits, daily rituals, and the lived philosophies of the akhada. In 2025, he expanded his practice during an artist residency in AlUla, Saudi Arabia, where he created a series of night photographs made solely with moonlight. This project examines silence, desert vastness, and the pre-electric sublime.
Jayesh Sharma is represented by Nine Fish Art Gallery, Mumbai. His upcoming solo exhibition, Rituals of Impermanence, focuses entirely on his Kushti project, reflecting his ongoing interest in time, devotion, and the human relationship with embodied traditions.
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