Blue Futures: Reimagining Indigo at Hampi Art Labs
Indigo has never been a neutral colour. Long before it entered the language of fashion or modern abstraction, it was a material shaped by land, labour and belief — cultivated, fermented, resisted and traded across continents. Blue Futures: Reimagining Indigo, on view until 15 February 2026 at Hampi Art Labs in Karnataka, India, approaches indigo not as surface or symbol, but as an active force: a material that holds memory, carries contradiction and continues to generate meaning.
Ajit Kumar Das, Neel Basanta, 2025. Natural pigments painted on handwoven cloth, 48 x 84 in, Artist’s Collection.
Curated by Meera Curam, the exhibition is grounded in the proposition that indigo operates as a “current, carrying with it the weight of centuries and the breath of futures yet to unfold.” This sense of movement animates the exhibition, as historical knowledge and contemporary experimentation are brought into close conversation. Works drawn from the Indigo Art Museum collection sit alongside newly realised practices, positioning indigo as both archive and proposition.
Upendra Ram Roop Katha, 2024. Stoneware and indigo. Piece 1: 8.4 x 38.4 in, Piece 2: 8.4 x 39.6 in, Piece 3: 9.6 x 39.6 in. Indigo Art Museum.
Artists such as Aboubakar Fofana are central to this approach. Fofana’s practice, rooted in Malian indigo traditions and sustained by deep engagement with natural dye processes, treats indigo as a living material shaped by ritual, care and time. His work foregrounds slowness, ecological responsibility and the continuity of knowledge passed through hands and generations. In dialogue with this are works by Buaisou, Alwar Balasubramaniam, Kavin Mehta, Upendra Ram and Vyom Mehta, and more, whose practices extend indigo into sculptural, ceramic and experimental textile forms.
Kakuo Kaji/BUAISOU: Design and Dyeing. Tadashi Kozono, Hiromu Ishida, Takehiro Shimizu / BUAISOU: Knot weaving. Taima Dantsū Danzome Taremaku Enkan ,2025. Natural indigo on ramie, Japanese paper, and wood, 49.2 x 49.2 in. Photo credit: Yuji Imamura
Across the exhibition, indigo’s paradoxes are allowed to remain unresolved. It recalls the colonial plantations of Bengal and the slave-driven economies of the Caribbean, even as it appears in the gentle repetition of resist-dyeing, in the depth of a carefully tended vat, or in the subtle variations of handwoven cloth. From the traditions of Mali and Japan to the dyeing communities of Kachchh, indigo emerges as a shared language, marked by difference yet bound by touch.
Bappaditya Biswas, New Horizons: Weftscapes, 2024. Handwoven Jamdani garments in natural indigo, West Bengal. Sangita Jindal Collection.
For Sangita Jindal, Founder of Hampi Art Labs and Chairperson of the JSW Foundation, indigo is “a living material — one that carries within it the touch of craft, the memory of history, and the pulse of creativity that connects India to the world.” This understanding underpins the exhibition’s invitation to slow down and attend closely. Moving through the space becomes an act of listening: to colour as process, to material as witness.
Blue Futures asks what a colour can remember, and what futures might be imagined when those memories are held with care. Rooted in the artist-first vision of Hampi Art Labs, the exhibition offers indigo as story still in motion.
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Further Information:
Blue Futures: Reimagining Indigo, is on view now until 15 February 2026 at Hampi Art Labs, Karnataka, India. Exhibition timings are 3pm to 7pm, with guided walks available by appointment via info@hampiartlabs.com.
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Image Credits:
Lead: Aboubakar Fofana Untitled 2019 Natural indigo on Curcuilingo villosa fibre 81.6 x 46.8 in (triptych) Indigo Art Museum.
All further images as credited in photo captions.