Reena Saini Kallat’s works encourage viewers to reflect on arbitrary boundaries between nations
Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, managing trustee and director of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum has combed through Kallat’s body of work and curated an exhibition ‘Cartographies of the Unseen,’ which open to the public today
MUMBAI: In the 30 years that Reena Saini Kallat has been a practising artist, there’s one theme she keeps returning to — boundaries. The denotation is simple – the world is divided into nations and territories, and technology has blurred boundaries, borders do exist.

“I am not necessarily thinking of just physical borders but also the social and psychological barriers that separate us,” says the artist. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, managing trustee and director of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum has combed through Kallat’s body of work and curated an exhibition ‘Cartographies of the Unseen,’ which open to the public today. “Her work represents the moment – it’s about fracture, conflict and values across civilisations that we should be aware of, engage with and try to live by,” says Mehta.
By placing artworks about boundaries and distinctions in a colonial era museum — which houses statues of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria — Mehta is engaging with the space’s fraught history. For instance, in front of the statues, she has placed Kallat’s 2006 artwork Memoria Corona, which is essentially a large sculpted crown Queen Victoria would have worn, with the Kohinoor embedded in it. Kallat adds tension to the piece by chiselling in names of freedom fighters all over the sculpture, essentially depicting the colonial oppression that the crown represents. “It’s at once about the artist as also what works within this space. As a curator, I love the crown. It’s such an iconic work for a museum like ours,” says Mehta.
Kallat’s works also encourage viewers to reflect on arbitrary boundaries between nations, the way these spaces have been exploited and the genuine connection shared by human beings. Divisions like the Radcliffe Line, the Mason-Dixon Line and the Curzon Line don’t just physically demarcate a land — they impact communities and cultures. “As an artist, the line is such an integral part of a work. When it’s drawn across territories, people are highly impacted,” says Kallat. That, regardless of the fact that “there’s so much that binds us together, culturally and ecologically”. Ecology is a significant highlight in some works on display – nature survives despite tensions between various regions: India and Pakistan, US and Mexico, North and South Korea, Ireland and UK, and so on. From deep underground networks that trees share across boundaries to the birds flying cross, Kallat remarks “nature knows no boundaries”.
Kallat is using the natural world to display the absurdity of human division. The artificial lines humans draw end up impacting nature, be it reshaping a river’s course or taking over an ecologically sensitive middle zone. “That’s the human imprint on the landscape,” she adds.
Even as Kallat focuses on the inherent oneness of the world, she’s also commenting on the many ways in which these boundaries further division. In her 2023 work Pattern Recognition, on display at the museum, Kallat presents two pyramids made of electric wires and metal.
The pyramids display maps of different countries based on their ranking on Henley Passport Index, which positions countries based on the travel freedoms their passports allow. One pyramid has data from 2006 and the other from 2023. While the countries have changed, moving from a European dominance to a reflection of Asia’s growing power, Kallat is more interested in the inherent gap that remains between the countries on the top and those at the bottom. Global power dynamics may have shifted but the inherent power imbalance remains. “It’s a reflection of how unequal the world is, since privilege and policy come into play,” says Kallat.
In a world that’s desperate to form groups and led by otherisation, Kallat shares that all the works are about interpretation -- depending on which side one belongs to. “If we just recognise our own limitations and be more sensitive toward each other, we will perhaps be able to live more amicably,” says Kallat.
Mehta encapsulates the works on display as well as her curatorial endeavour saying, “A lot of her work is about mapping, about cartography. We tend to just accept things as they are. But this [exhibition] is looking at the hard facts. And what’s so remarkable about her work is that she takes these very hard facts and transforms them into powerful artworks that engage you and make you think about them.”
(‘Cartographies of the Unseen,’ will be on display at the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum from today till April 6.)

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