Swapnaa Tamhane (b. 1976, Toronto, based in Montreal), works to destabilize and untether colonial constructs as an artist, curator, and writer. Her process focuses on drawing, considering the presence of her hand in making paper and the treatment of surfaces. She works in collaboration and a skill-sharing process with artisan-designers in Kutch, Gujarat, India, working with block printing and embroidery. This process of working is intentionally driven by wanting to find new languages for image-making, and developing new ground for how art, craft, and design in India have been historically articulated and hierarchically divided by colonialism. Her interests in craft and design led to the publication of SĀR: The Essence of Indian Design, published by Phaidon Press (2016), written together with designer Rashmi Varma. Her curatorial research is dedicated to the contemporary art histories of India and the wider South-Asian diaspora, with a key focus on feminist histories.
Tamhane has been a Research Fellow with Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (2009), and an International Fellow with Kulturstiftung des Bundes (2013). She has been supported by the SSHRC, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and Kunststiftung NRW.
She has exhibited her work at A Space Gallery, Toronto; Nature Morte, Delhi; articule, Montreal; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, BC; and V&A Dundee, Scotland.
EDUCATION
MFA Fibres & Material Practices, Concordia University, Montreal, 2021
MA Contemporary Art, Distinction, The University of Manchester, 2001
BA Art History, High Honours, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1999
RESIDENCIES
2024 Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, Nebraska
2022 Winter Artist-in-Residence, Banff (cancelled due to Covid)
2018 Jorisch Family Artist Residency, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria
2015 What About Art?, Mumbai, India
2013 Space 118, Mumbai, India
2009 KHOJ @ 1 Shanthi Road, Bangalore, India
1999 School of Visual Arts, Summer Residency, New York, US
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
CABINET, Patel Brown, Toronto, ON
Never Was a Man, curated by Julie Eilers Smith, SIGHTINGS, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal, QC
2023
Swapnaa Tamhane: No Surface is Neutral, curated by Deepali Dewan, Surrey Art Gallery, BC
DROP CLOTH, Hamilton Artists Inc., Hamilton
2022
The Golden Fibre, V&A Dundee, Scotland, curated by Meredith More and Mother Tongue (Tiffany Boyle)
Swapnaa Tamhane: Mobile Palace, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, curated by Dr. Deepali Dewan
2020
In Reference To, articule, Montreal
2019
Form, Neutor Passage, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria, curated by Tina Teufel and Antonia Lotz
2017
Portable Stories, an August Fröhls Presentation, Gardiner Museum, Toronto, curated by Rea McNamara
2014
Drawing Tools, an August Fröhls Presentation, Mönchengladbach
2013
The Institute of Knots, Cosmos Records West, Toronto
2012
DUMB BUNNY, offspace, Ossington Avenue, Toronto
How to Draw a Drawing, an August Fröhls Presentation, SummerWorks Performance Festival, curated by Michael Rubenfeld
We Don’t Know What this Conversation is Going to Make, an August Fröhls Presentation, Interaccess Electronic and Media Arts Centre, Toronto
Three, an August Fröhls Presentation, Townhouse, Toronto
The Institute of Knots, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Nuit Blanche, Toronto
2009
House of Cards, KHOJ @ 1 Shanthi Road, Bangalore
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
Rag Pickers, with Karen Kraven, Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, ON
2025
Summoning the Ineffable, Patel Brown, Montreal, QC
2024
Reverberations: Textile as Echo, curated by Murtaza Vali, Green Art Gallery, Dubai
The Past is a Country: Indo-Nostalgia in Contemporary Art, Rajiv Menon Gallery, Los Angeles
Prendre Empreinte – Holding Knowledge, curated by Manel Benchabane, Stewart Hall Art Gallery, Pointe-Claire, QC
2023
From Where I Stand, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and British Council, Delhi, curated by Edinburgh Printmakers and Flow India Creative Learning Project, February to March 2023
Sculpture Park Jaipur, Madhavendra Palace, curated by Peter Nagy, February to December 2023
re*, Worlding Public Cultures, curated by Varda Nisar, Lorraine Doucet-Sisto, and Manar Abotouk, FOFA Gallery, Montreal, March to April 2023
2020
Ideas Travel Faster Than Light, Mecklenburgh Square Garden Project, London, curated by Jasone Miranda-Bilbao and Clair Joy
2019
From Glissant, Unfixed and Unbounded, Art Gallery of Ontario, curated by Catherine Sicot (ELEGOA), Wanda Nanibush (AGO), and Pamela Edmonds (McMaster Museum)
IGNITION 15, curated by Michèle Thériault and Nicole Burisch, Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery, Montreal
2016
Protectives, curated by Vicky Moufawad-Paul, A Space Gallery, Toronto, with Basil AlZeri
2015
SETS, an August Fröhls Presentation, curated by Elise Foster Vander Elst and Mattheiu Foss, FOCUS Photography Festival Mumbai
2014
even my mum can make a book #5 and #4, curated by Kristina Kramer, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart and Apartment Project, Berlin
No Space for Feng Shui, curated by Katja Kottmann and Dino Steinhof, Alte Latin Schule, Viersen
2012
Genius Loci, with Aman Sandhu, curated by Stuart Keeler, Art Gallery of Mississauga
2009
Contested Spaces – Incursions, curated by Heidi Fitchner, Gallery Seven, Delhi
Before / After, Launch Projects, CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto
WRITING
Interview, Sukaina Kubba: Turn Me Into a Flower, DCA Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, April 2024
‘The Chiffonier’, exhibition essay for Karen Kraven, AXENÉO7, Gatineau, QC, 2022
'The Limits of....Self-Orientalizing', Nothing Personal, 2021
https://www.nothingpersonalmagazine.com/
SĀR: The Essence of Indian Design, Swapnaa Tamhane & Rashmi Varma, Phaidon Press, 2016
‘Posters and Public Space’, Journal of Asian Diasporic Visual Culture and the Americas, Brill, 2016
‘In Order to Join – the Political in a Historical Moment’, Exhibition Catalogue, February 2015
‘Rummana Hussain: Building Necessary Histories’, n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal, May 2014
https://www.ktpress.co.uk/nparadoxa-volume-details.asp?volumeid=34
‘The Performative Space: Tracing the roots of Performance-based practices in India’, C Magazine, 2011
https://cmagazine.com/issues/110
‘Propositions in Performance’, Catalogue Essay, Khoj Publications, Delhi, 2010
CURATOR
2021
CONSTITUTIONS, Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, with Rajyashri Goody, Sajan Mani, Sohrab Hura, Prajakta Potnis, and Birender Yadav
2017
HERE: Locating Contemporary Canadian Art, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, group exhibition with Derya Akay, Dawit L. Petros, Brette Gabel, Nahed Mansour, Harkeerat Mangat, Nep Sidhu, Sharlene Bamboat, Jamelie Hassan, Babak Golkar, Khan Lee, Jaret Vadera, Sameer Farooq, Shaan Syed, Nadia Myre, Zadie Xa, and Elizabeth Zvonar, Osheen Harruthoonyan, and George Elliott Clarke, ex. cat.
2015
In Order to Join – Politisch in einem historischen Moment, co-curated with Susanne Titz
Max Mueller Bhavan / Goethe-Institute & CSMVS (former Prince of Wales Museum), Mumbai, 26 February to 19 April, 2015, ex. cat. Helen Chadwick (UK), Chohreh Feyzdjou (IR/FRA), Sheela Gowda (IN), Angela Grauerholz (CAN), Jamelie Hassan (CAN), Mona Hatoum (UK), Rummana Hussain (IN), Shelagh Keeley (CAN), Astrid Klein (GER), Ana Mendieta (US), Pushpamala N. (IN), Adrian Piper (GER), Lala Rukh (PAK), and Rosemarie Trockel (GER), Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, 8 December, 2013 to 16 March, 2014, ex. cat.
OBJECT MANIPULATING ECONOMY / ECONOMY MANIPULATING OBJECT, co-curated with Aman Sandhu, artists include Soya Arakawa (JP/GER), David Bernstein (US/NL), Jessica Gispert (US/GER), Elmar Hermann (GER), Harkeerat Mangat (CAN), Rajni Perera (CAN), Titre Provisoire (GER), Nep Sidhu (Black Constellation) (CAN), Kristina Stoyanova (BUL/GER), Arjan Stockhausen (GER), and Jaret Vadera (CAN), August Fröhls, Mönchengladbach, 29 January to 15 February, 2015
‘Fearless: The Hunterwali Story’ and ‘The World Before Her’, Filmwerkstatt, Düsseldorf
2013
Assistant Curator: TEXTILES: OPEN LETTER: Abstraktionen, Textilien, Kunst, curated by Rike Frank and Grant Watson, Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, 23 June to 10 November, 2013
2012
Ali El-Darsa, Hart House & SAVAC, 26 April
2008
Play/Grounds: Scaling the Premises, Dean Baldwin, Susy Oliveira, Rashmi Varma, Gerald Grison, Queen West Art Crawl, Toronto
Foreground. Background.: Matt Calderwood (UK), Aron Hill (CAN), Peter Macdonald (UK), and Shaan Syed (CAN), Elementa Modern and Contemporary Art, Dubai
2007
Simon Starling: Cuttings; Fiona Banner: The Bastard Word; Francesco Vezzoli; Steven Shearer; Stephen Andrews; Auto Emotion, Assistant Curator, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto
2002
PRIVATE, Seema Rao (IN), Zeyad Dajani (UK), Anthony Gross (UK), David Gysek (USA), Aldgate Pump House, London
FELLOWSHIPS & GRANTS
2021 Concept to Realization, Canada Council for the Arts
2020 Research & Creation, Canada Council for the Arts
2019 IARTS Textiles of India Grant, ROM
2018 Joseph-Armand Bombardier (SSHRC)
2015 Project Grants to Critics and Curators, Canada Council for the Arts
2014 Kunststiftung NRW (with Aman Sandhu)
2013 International Museum Fellowship, Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Germany
2012 Visual Arts Projects, Ontario Arts Council
2008 Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Arts Fellowship
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
2021 Board Member, SAVAC, Toronto
2019 Jury, Sobey Art Award
2011 Board Member, SAVAC, Toronto