With windows opening onto the greenery of Hyde Park and natural light curling through the space throughout the day, Serpentine North is a pavilion that does not sever the viewer from the outside world, but rather attunes them to the flow of nature. Indian artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar’s exhibition, running from September 23, 2026, to January 2027, situates itself precisely at this architectural and temporal threshold.
Kanwar’s practice centers on the seismic fractures caused by the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan. Rather than framing this tragic history—which displaced tens of millions of people within weeks—through a linear documentary structure, he treats it with a poetic, layered, and deeply contemplative cinematic vocabulary. Long static shots, recurring image sequences, and still frames that arrest the narrative flow extract the viewer from the velocity of the digital era, bringing them face-to-face with the weight of historical trauma.
Suspending time within the transparent architecture of Serpentine North, this selection transforms the intergenerational trajectory of grief and loss into an intimate act of bearing witness.
