Ali Akbar Mehta (b.1983, Mumbai) is a Transmedia artist, curator, researcher, and writer. Driven by the desires of knowing and participating in the creation of an equal world, his research-based practice is to make immersive archival projects that map knowledges through a multifocal lens of violence, conflict, and trauma. He aims to found processes that would leave deep impacts on the contemporary crossovers of culture, technology and knowledge.
Currently, he is invited to Party Office b2b Fadescha at documenta fifteen, to develop ‘Archives as Contemporary Object X’, a discursive program investigating new methodologies of archiving as an artistic practice. His project Purgatory Edit is a user-generated new media project developing an archive on the representations of violence; and his ongoing doctoral research titled, Practicing Online Performativity: Constructing Politically Conscious Archives as Participatory Art in the Age of Data, Power, and Violence investigates (infra)structural and performative relations between online archives and its users. He regularly writes and lectures on museum-building as a critical artistic praxis, and on archiving as a site for Infrastructural Praxis through the lens of decoloniality, queer-feminist praxis, critical diversity and socio-politics of border thinking.
Such projects investigate and offer countermeasures to forms of violence and conflict generated as everyday collateral. By experimenting with new archival rules that depart from institutional and coloniality-driven legacy archiving, he generates new knowledge systems of how narratives of history, memory, and identity may be mapped to make visible hegemonic power relations and silenced historical materialism. Such archival mappings – drawings, paintings, new media works, net-based projects, poems, essays, theoretical texts, and performances both of bodies and networks – seek to create knowledge systems that outline a vibrant new political public sphere.
His work has been presented in India and Europe, most notably at documenta fifteen, Taide Museo ARTSI, Gallen-Kallela Museum, Ainola Museum, Visavuori Museum, Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Venice Biennale Research Pavillion, Mänttä Art Festival, ONOMA Summer Exhibition (Fiskars), Myymälä2, Third Space, TAO Art Gallery, Art Heritage, Galerie Mirchandani+Steinruecke, among others. Several of his projects, such as 256 Million Colours of Violence, Outsiders at Work, Ballad of the Lost Utopian Meadow, and Central Park Archives, exist as ongoing online projects.
He is a co-founder of the Museum of Impossible Forms, Helsinki, an anti-racist queer feminist project, and was its Co-Artistic Director (2018-2020). He is currently a research member of the Cluster of Critical Artistic Research (CCARE) and serves on the boards of TKOK ry (2021-), and Frame Contemporary Art Finland (2021-). He is a doctoral candidate in the Contemporary Art Department at Aalto University, Helsinki, holds an MA (Visual Culture, Curating, and Contemporary Art) from Aalto University, Helsinki, and a BFA (Drawing & Painting) from Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai.
Orcid Researcher ID:
Partners and Collaborators
Jernej Čuček Gerbec and Saša Nemec
Partners
© Copyright Ali Akbar Mehta 2021 — Website dev-design by mpalash
Projects
- 2026
- 2025
- 2024
- 2021
The war that is coming is not the last one, part I
WAR • ROOM • ECHO: Regarding the Pain of Other Cyborgs
- 2019
- 2014
Mazgaon Interviews – Fakhruddin and Khateeja Merchant
SITE : STAGE : STRUCTURE
What a Wonderful World
- 2012
The Superhero Series
- 2009
- 2007
Curatorial work
- 2026
- 2025
- 2024
- 2021
How to work together? Extended notes on collaboration
How to Work Together? Seeking Models of Solidarity and Alliance
Public Talk: Pauliina Feodoroff
Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities Spring 2021
- 2018
Cyber Archive
- 2017
- 2015
- 2014
- 2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
- 2009
- 2007
Performances
- 2026
- 2025
- 2024
- 2023
- 2021
Ballad of the Lost Utopian Meadow: LIVE
Narrating WAR / HABITAT 1
Performance-Installation, in collaboration w/ varialamboReciprocities
- 2020
Glitchverse
Souja/Shelter Festival 2020, (online)Narrating WAR, New Performance Turku, Festival 2020: Mobilities
Performance by Ali Akbar Mehta with varialambo
- 2019
direct contact // feedback
w/ Vidha Saumya, Pixelache Festival 2019: Breaking the Fourth wall, HelsinkiNarrating WAR, Mymmälä2, Helsinki
Performance Reading by Ali Akbar Mehta
- 2018
Narrating War, Experimental Event VI – La Torre de Babel, Pori
curated by Anna Jensen, Andrea Coyotzi Borja and Sanna Ritvanen, Valimo Hall of Palmgren ConservatoryCongratulations, the Space is invaded: Now What?
part of Space Invaders VI, curated by Anna Jensen and Elisa Suvanto, HelsinkiCyborg Archives: Can Archives Speak?
Performance directed by Ali Akbar Mehta and performed by Ganesh TotekarCyborg Archives: GarbageInGarbageOut, TIFA Working Studios, Pune
Performance directed by Ali Akbar Mehta, and performed by Luv MehtaniNarrating War, Museum of Impossible Forms, Helsinki
curated by Vishnu Vardhani as part of Performance LAB VIINarrating War, Carinarnica, Nova Gorcia
- 2017
Narrating War, Kaapelitehdas, Helsinki
curated by Heidi HänninenNarrating War, Clark House, Mumbai
- 2016
Narrating War, Kallio Public Library, Helsinki
part of Chimurenga Collective's 'The Pan African Space Station', curated by Ahmed Al-Nawas- Play the Space, Stupid!
Performance in Collaboration with Gabriela Gazova, Parsa Khamehkosh, Ragnar Rael, and Saša Nemec Narrating War, Pispala, Tampere
- 2015
- 2014
- 2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
- 2009
- 2007
Texts
- 2026
- 2025
- 2024
- 2023
The Politics of Togetherness: Beyond the integration infrastructure of State and institutional apparatus
In A. Alemanji, et. al. (Eds.), Rethinking and undoing integration. Volume 15, Nordic Journal of Migration ResearchOn the Edge of the Re(lation)al: Between and Beyond Cyber Realities
In Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás & Marianne Schädler (eds.), Beyond Matter, Within Space: Curatorial and Art Mediation Techniques on the Verge of Virtual Reality, by ZKM Karlsruhe and Hatje Cantz
- 2022
On Recognising the Moment of Hope: Speaking in Echoes with Hiwa K.
Ali Akbar Mehta interviews Hiwa K. on navigating the capitalistic system of art, ‘urgency’ of climate change and notions of homeland.
Bearing Witness: Articulating an Archival Practice
Who watches whom? Ruminations on power, gaze, and field through Pilvi Takala’s Close Watch
This review of Pilvi Takala’s Close Watch, exhibited at the Finnish pavilion of the Venice Biennale, seeks to question whether issues pertaining to embodiment and social intervention – and by extension, research conducted and artistic practice developed through it – can ever be free of the power relations implicit in the political, identity-driven understanding of society today.
- 2021
Touching/Transforming: Notes Towards Collective Critical Artistic Research Practices and Processes
with Bäckman, F., Close, R., Godin, M-A., Kallio-Tavin, M., Mehta, A. A., Qureshi, A., & Sadatizarrini, S., Research in Arts and Education, 4. Aalto University. ISSN 2670-2142Generating (An)Other Economy: Working Together at the Museum of Impossible Forms
Written as a contribution for the Impossible Reader 2020titled*, How to work together?* Seeking models of solidarity and alliance, published by the Museum of Impossible Forms in 2021
A longing for something written in memory: Library as Archive as Excavation Site
Kirjasto/ Library does not formally announce a thematic drive at its outset, but situates itself within an abstract idea ‘archiving’, or of what a collection, library, or an archive could be.
Cultural production and racism: How to challenge racist structures
in 'Rasismi, valta ja vastarinta' (Racism, power and resistance), (ed) Suvi Keskinen, (pub.) GaudeamusMuseum of Impossible Forms: Voicing the Margins
in 'Marginaaleista museoihin'. (From Margins to Museums), (eds.) Rastas, Anna & Koivunen, Leila, (trans.) Nurmenniemi, Jenni, Tampere: Vastapaino, FI
- 2020
Processing In-Between(ness)
in 'IN BETWEEN', HIAP summer Residency publication, (pub.) HIAP, Helsinki, FIThe Shape of Museums to Come
“The Museum of the Future was published in 1970. 43 contributions to the discussion about the future of the museum. 50 years later, a publication brings together 43 new contributions by international authors from museum practice, from theory, education, art and architecture. They create concrete visions of a museum of the future: confident and doubtful, critical, clearly positioned and subjective. What do visions of the future accomplish and what do they make impossible? How empowering or disempowering are speculations about the future for a change in the museum of the present?”
SAFE{R}: Evolving the Conditions for Collaboration
in 'Six years in the Third Space', Third Space, Helsinki (published online)Walkin the Portal
Curated by Vivek Chockalingam and Marialaura Ghidini, Walkin Studios, Bangalore.A Cyber Archive of Questions
A Cyber Archive of Questions is an essay published in ‘cohabitant/mutants’, Restricted Fixations, issue one – an independent zine curated and edited by Renuka Rajiv.
- Akbar Padamsee 1928-2020: At 25, he was 25000
Who is Welcome? – Thinking Hospitality as Museum of Impossible Forms
Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 2, (ed.) Yvonne Billimore and Jussi Koitela, (pub.) Archive Books, Berlin, in collaboration with Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Helsinki, FI
- 2019
Notes for Radical Diversity
To Not Wait for the Archive: Home and Labour mired in the complications of Invisibalisation
Home Issue, Visual Culture and Contemporary Art Journal #5, (ed.) Saara Mahbouba, Paola Jallili and Else Lagerspetz, published by Aalto University, Helsinki 2019Atlas of Lost Beliefs (for Insurgents, Citizens, & Untitled Bodies)
Curatorial Text, written as part of Co-Artistic Directorship at Museum of Impossible Forms, Helsinki
Saša Nemec: My Teenage Angst Never Faded, I Am Still Rebelling
Interview by OUTSIDERS AT WORKTuike and Simo Alitalo: All Ears are Equal
Interview by OUTSIDERS AT WORKAbhinit Khanna : Make Memes not War
Interview by OUTSIDERS AT WORKHow to be a hospitable without being a motel: Thinking Hospitalities
Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 1, (ed.) Yvonne Billimore and Jussi Koitela, (pub.) Archive Books, Berlin, in collaboration with Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Helsinki, FI
- 2018
Cyber Archive: Archiving as a sustainable counter-hegemonic practice
Hakara Journal, (ed.) Ashutosh Poddar and Noopur Desai, 2018Cyber Archive: Being and Doing Knowledge
MA thesis, Aalto University, 2018An Ode to Erkki Kurenniemi
Essay by Ali Akbar MehtaFOOD and Other Practices at the Arthouse
Visual Culture and Contemporary Art Journal #4, (ed.) Ali Akbar Mehta and Vidha Saumya, Published by Aalto University, Espoo, 2018Colours of Violence, AROOP III - Totems and Taboos
Contribution for Aroop, volume 3, Totems and Taboos
- 2017
Border Crossing: Reshaping the Agency of Struggle
Interview with Ranjit Hoskote, CuMMA Papers Publication Series, (ed.) Nora Sternfeld, 2017Locating: The Museum of Impossible Forms
Kone Foundation Boldness Blog, 2017The Photons of Politics: Footnotes for a New History
RAB-RAB Journal for Political and Formal Inquiries in Art, (ed.) Sezgin Boynik, 2017
- 2016
Narrating War
- The Inescapable Manifest Destiny of the Artworld Culture: Defining Art through the state of the Artworld today
Essay by Ali Akbar Mehta
- 2015
No one at the ceremony remembers to mention the artist
Essay for Vidha Saumya’s exhibition 'No one at the ceremony remembers to mention the artist', Third Space, 2015Perfect Ghosts
A brief historical record of the Kruunuvuori Villas, by Ali Akbar Mehta
- 2014
Artist Book 3: Kwan Tai Shek
Artist Book 2: Daarukhana
Artist Book 1: Performers of Mazgaon
Why is an archive of wars required?
War List CODEX
- 2012
- 2011
Poems
A Body Split in Two
International Gallerie, Journal of Contemporary art, issue 30, (ed.) Bina Sarkar Ellias, Mumbai
- 2010
- 2009
- 2007
Talks & teaching
- 2026
- 2025
- 2024
- 2021
A small introduction to the history of art from the indian Subcontinent
Decolonisation in the arts and cultural fields
Artists Vidha Saumya and Ali Akbar Mehta: Recipes come together from resources - and we are not living in the world where everybody have the same resources
Central Park Archives: Access, commons and networks of care
Mobility and its Discontents
- 2020
Kuvan Kievat
Archives as Knowledge Systems
Towards a New Internet: In conversation with Palash Mukhopadhyay
Violence in Finnish Society: In conversation with Arvind Ramachandran
Digital Creativity and Entanglement: In conversation with Timo Tuhkanen
- Is there a room with just a colour? In conversation with Camelo Ramiro
Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 2 Readings with Annet Dekker, and Susanna Ånäs and Ali Akbar Mehta
Central Park Archives - workshops
CreaTures: Panel Discussion on Creative Practices for Transformational Futures
- 2016
- 2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
- 2009
- 2007
Exhibitions
- 2026
- 2025
- 2024
- 2022
Abdication of the Geniuses
Into the Void
curated by Farbod Fakharzadeh, for Ars Pori 2022Locus of Control
curated by Abhinit Khanna and Anoushkaa Bhatnagar, House of Creativity, Mumbai, IN
- 2021
Data Vitality: Soft Infrastructures and Economies of Knowledge
Dipoli Gallery, Aalto University, Helsinki, FIReboot Me Softly ↻
19th edition of Piksel Festival, Bergen, NOCentral Park Archives, Maunulatalo
Installation produced by m-cult, Maunulatalo, Helsinki, FITo Err is Human
Mänttä Kuvataideviikot, curated by Anna Ruth, Mänttä, Jyväskulä, FITime Machine and Utopias: Longing, Living conditions, Homecoming
curated by Hanna Johansson, at the Ainola Museum, Visavuori Museum, and Tarvaspää Museum, FIReciprocities
- 2020
Is there a room with just a colour?
Myymälä2, HelsinkiCentral Park Archives sound walk
launch of the prototype interfaceMaunula Commons
The Meadow
Onoma Summer Exhibition 2020, curated by Taru Elfving, Fiskars VillageA Tapestry of Time
TAO Art Gallery, Mumbai
- 2018
Assembly of Access
TIFA Working Studios, 2018To Participate in the Archive
- No Corners
TAO Art Gallery, Mumbai
- 2017
Partizaning Maunula
Maunulatalo, Maunula, HelsinkiAteria/ The Meal
URB 2017 + Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Helsinki, 2017OUT2
Research Pavilion: The Utopia of Access, Venice Biennale, VeniceIS/NOT: Sculpture for the Post-Truth Era
Aalto University Learning Centre, HelsinkiLimitations of Liability
- 2016
256 Million Colours of Violence, Exhibition
Third Space, HelsinkiImmersion, 2016
ex-ADDLAB Space, Aalto University, Espoo, FISpace Invaders IV: Heterotopia
Espoo, 2016Whose History is it Anyway?*
Aalto University, 2016SOAK, Illusia
Kalasatama, HelsinkiImmersion 2016
Former ADD LAB Space, Aalto University, Espoo
- 2013
- Beyond the Canvas
Curated by Kalpana Shah and Sapna Kar, TAO Art Gallery, Mumbai, - Small is Beautiful – II
TAO Art Gallery, Mumbai - Equilibrium
TAO Art Gallery, Mumbai Tagore Lost and Found
Curated by Bina Sarkar Ellias, IndiaBulls Art Gallery and Auction House, New Delhi
- 2012
Small is Beautiful
TAO Art Gallery, Mumbai- SPACE 118
- Of Men and Supermen
India Art Festival, by TAO Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2012
- 2010
April Salon
Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai- Three New Voices: Dimensions in Time & Space
Art Heritage, New Delhi
- 2009
Press
- 2026
- 2025
- 2024
- 2023
- 2022
Helsinki Biennial 2023 is created together with five curatorial collaborators
Bearing Witness: Articulating an Archival Practice
- 2021
Mänttä's Fine Arts Weeks can give itself to the use of artificial intelligence - Man has a similar relationship to artificial intelligence as to God
Environmental anxiety is a phenomenon more than a hundred years old
Artists Vidha Saumya and Ali Akbar Mehta: Recipes come together from resources - and we are not living in the world where everybody have the same resources
Makkaraa pitelevä koira herättää Pariisin-ikävän Mäntässä
Ali Akbar Mehta & varialambo - Narrating WAR / Habitat 1
- 2020
Collecting Art in Archives: In Conversation with Ali Akbar Mehta
Mehta & Ånäs: Keskuspuisto-arkistot
The art of making art seen through the lens of serving and consuming food
- 2016
The Spaces Are Alive
- 2015
Interview: Memory & the Maximum City
Chinese Fortunes and other Mumbai Memories
The BB Art Showcase: Ali Akbar Mehta
Site Specific
- 2014
Hidden Histories of Mazgoan
Odes and Inquisitions: Sino-Indian Connections in Recent Indian Art
Interview
The Possibility of Alienation
Exhibition Essay by Sumesh Sharma – co-curator, Clark House Initiative, MumbaiThe Possibility Of Alienation – Ali Akbar Mehta
- 2012
Visual Disobedience
- 2011
Nothing is Mundane
- Somewhere between Science and Subjectivity
Interview by Rahul D'Souza - In A Liminal Age
Interview by Rahul D'Souza Not on Noah’s Ark, but on the Raft of the Medusa
Essay by Ranjit Hoskote, Mumbai, 2011- Comprehending Violence
Review by Abhishek Bandekar Luminous Matter Press Kit
Dystopia and Urban Imagination
- 2009
- 2007