Sharmila Samant
(b. 1967)
Samant is an artist, and pedagogue whose practice spans installation, video, photography, performance, and community-based projects. Her work addresses issues of globalisation, identity, consumer culture, and
marginalisation, often through participatory and collaborative processes with communities and activist groups.
A graduate of Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai, she has undertaken residencies at institutions such as the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (Amsterdam) an Gasworks (London), and is currently a Residency Fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart.
Samant is a co-founder of Open Circle, a Mumbai-based collective that fosters dialogue on socio-political concerns through art. Her works have been presented at leading international platforms, including Tate Modern’s Century City, the Sydney Biennale, Yokohama Triennale, Busan Biennale and Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) Berlin.
Alongside her artistic practice, Samant is engaged in art education and cultural discourse, having taught at Shiv Nadar University (2013–2022) and contributed as advisor to several foundations and initiatives. She continues to live and work in Mumbai and internationally.
Visiting Cards, 2003
This work consists of visiting cards designed to simulate international flight boarding passes. A boarding card is often the last official document required to leave a country, symbolizing both access and restriction. The work reflects on the mobility of artworks and artists across the borders of the ‘Orient’ and the ‘Occident’, a circulation that has intensified in recent years.
The piece comments on the position of artists from non-European countries, whose recognition often depends on visibility within international exhibition circuits. Each card reproduces an advertisement for duty-free shopping, with curators in shaping cultural exchange.
The format references Lufthansa, the airline unofficially associated with deporting immigrants from Western Europe, thus underscoring the tension between freedom of travel and enforced displacement. When arranged collectively, the cards can form objects tied to international travel – such as passports, luggage, or airplanes – or recall historically significant travel icons in the Indian context, including the Gateway of India and India Gate.
