Priya Chauhan

Biography

I create exhibitions that examine what has been left outside the frame. This perspective guides my practice and informs the questions that shape my curatorial work.

I studied History of Art at the National Museum Institute, New Delhi, where my research focused on the visual representation of nineteenth-century Delhi. Examining how cities are documented, mythologised, and made legible across different media. This inquiry into how knowledge is produced, preserved, and transmitted continues to inform my practice, shaping my interests in textiles, architecture, living traditions, spatial memory, and cultural research.

My work spans institutional and independent contexts as a curator, researcher, writer, and educator. I currently serve as Associate Curator at MAP, where I have curated three exhibitions over the past year: Beneath the Turning Sky, a long-term exhibition exploring wonder, mapping, and ecological crisis; Shape of a Thought: Letters from Ram Kumar, which repositions the celebrated Indian modernist through his own writings and literary practice; and In Celestial Company, which centres the often-overlooked figures of divine imagery, attendants, vahanas, and unnamed retinues to explore how marginalised positions can reveal broader social structures.

My current projects at MAP include a curatorial research project on Colchas (trade textiles); an exhibition on Islamic image-making, ritual, and material cultures in South Asia with Dr Sarover Zaidi; and The Enduring Rural with Dr Annapurna Garimella. These projects, planned for 2027–2028, investigate knowledge systems that exist beyond dominant archival frameworks.

Alongside my institutional practice, I am designing a museum space at Garh Palace, Bundi, Rajasthan, commissioned by the royal families of Alwar and Bundi. The project aims to bring the palace’s distinctive frescoes and miniature painting traditions into public view for the first time through a coherent institutional narrative.

Priya Chauhan, Associate Curator at The Museum of Art & Photography, Bengaluru, India, has been awarded by the Getty Foundation (Los Angeles, USA).