India, July 18 -- An art gallery can be a shape-shifter. Since late March 2025, the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Mumbai, has been morphing into many shapes that coexist to a single end. In one of these, it was an exhibition of paintings, embroidered fabric, and three-dimensional artworks, collectively titled A Show of Hands, curated by Ranjit Hoskote, to honour the memory of the departed multidisciplinary artist Gieve Patel, making the art gallery also a memorial and arts mela.

On the evening of May 24, six poets from Mumbai and around read poems to honour the memory of Patel, who was also a major Indian poet. This reading was brought together by the curator, who also joined in. The reading, as Hoskote expla...