Anoushka Mirchandani: My Body Was a River Once Opening Reception
Schedule
Fri Jan 16 2026 at 06:00 pm to 09:00 pm
UTC-08:00Location
Institute of Contemporary Art San José | San Jose, CA
About this Event
My Body Was a River Once is the debut institutional exhibition by India-born, San Francisco–based artist Anoushka Mirchandani, curated by Zoë Latzer. Featuring an entirely new body of work, the exhibition engages the senses—sight, sound, and smell—to explore memory, matrilineage, and the ways migration and place shape identity and agency.
For nearly a decade, Mirchandani has developed a distinctive visual language centered on translucent, introspective female figures often situated within domestic interiors. In My Body Was a River Once, these figures break free from built environments, merging with waterfalls, flora, stones, and tree bark in fluid metamorphoses that blur the boundaries between body and landscape.
Drawing inspiration from the Apsaras—celestial beings in South Asian mythology whose name translates to “one who moves flowingly in the waters”—Mirchandani reimagines these mythic figures as vessels of intergenerational movement, carrying ancestral stories across terrains both real and imagined. Expanding her practice beyond painting, she incorporates diaphanous silks, sculpted wooden thorns, and subtle aromas to create a multisensory environment. Together, these works form a living archive that reflects on belonging, inheritance, and transformation through the lens of mythmaking and migration.
More details on the opening receiption will be announced in the coming weeks.
Where is it happening?
Institute of Contemporary Art San José, 560 South 1st Street, San Jose, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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