Manjari Sharma, "Garuda," 2024. Photography, archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist.
Previous image: Manjari Sharma, "Garuda’s Wisdom" (detail), 2024. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist.Mumbai-born and Los Angeles-based artist Manjari Sharma will be in residence at the University of Alabama at Birmingham this fall.
Sharma’s 2023 exhibition “Expanding Darshan,” which combined the diverse historic collections of the Birmingham Museum of Art and the artist’s ongoing “Darshan” series — a photographic re-imagining of Hindu deities — received wide critical acclaim.
For her UAB residency, Sharma is creating a two-part collaborative exhibition: “Manjari Sharma, तत् त्वम् असि (Tat Tvam Asi): The Universe is a Mirror” for the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts and "Looking for a Silver Lining" for UAB Arts in Medicine.
The first exhibit is a speculative, fiction-based project that collages spiritual concepts of the Hindu rituals of death and the afterlife with mankind’s scientific curiosity and exploration of the universe. The second follows her family’s decade-long battle with frontotemporal dementia.
“Manjari Sharma: तत् त्वम् असि (Tat Tvam Asi) The Universe is a Mirror” will open at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, at AEIVA, 1221 10th Ave. South. The exhibition opening is part of the 2024 UAB Arts Block Party, a free celebration of art, music and food. Read more and register.
Manjari will give a public artist talk at AEIVA during a free reception, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct 14. The exhibition will be on show through Dec. 7. AEIVA, located at 1221 10th Ave. South, Birmingham, is open from noon-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Admission is free. Visit aeiva.uab.edu or call 205-975-6436 for information.
Sharma’s exhibition of photographs, “Looking for a Silver Lining," will be on show at the UAB Brain Aging and Memory Hub on the fifth floor of Callahan Eye Hospital from Wednesday, Oct. 16 through December.
As part of her residency, Sharma will lead a workshop for patients, care partners, health care providers, medical students and others. “Looking for a Silver Lining: A Photographic Exploration" will be from 10-11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, in Smith Auditorium on the third floor of the UAB Callahan Eye Hospital. During this workshop, Sharma will discuss what led to the creation of "Looking for a Silver Lining" and teach participants how to use photography as a tool for celebrating life even in difficult times. The workshop and panel are free and open to the public; registration is required.
At noon Oct. 16 in Smith Auditorium, Sharma will join UAB Medicine health care professionals for a panel discussion, “The Art of Communication and Connection: Empowering Patients and Care Partners when there is a Life-Threatening Illness Diagnosis.” Featured speakers are Sharma and David Geldmacher, M.D., professor and director of the UAB Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology in the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine. To register email artsinmedicine@uab.edu.
On Thursday, Sept. 12, Sharma will participate in the UAB Arts in Medicine documentary screening “The Last Ecstatic Days” at 6 p.m. followed by an end-of-life care panel discussion. Both are free and open to the public.
This programming is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, the AIM Kirklin Family Endowment, and the Dora and Sanjay Singh Cultural Arts Fund.