Rohini Devasher

Working with video, painting, printmaking, drawing, installation, and other mediums, Rohini Devasher (b. 1978, New Delhi) maps the complexities of ecology, cosmic space, and atmospheric science viewed through the twin lenses of wonder and horror. Her projects illuminate the weird, seductive, and entangled worlds that emerge from deep research and scientific exploration.

A longtime amateur astronomer, Devasher collaborates with other astronomers to probe the stories, conversations, and histories of those whose lives have been transformed by the night sky. She investigates the remote and often strange sites where observers gather, along with the forms and modes of interaction that mediate their observations. Devasher's slowly built chronicle philosophically investigates vision. What does one look at and why? How does one focus attention? How does one describe, collect, sort, map, and measure what one is seeing? 

The theoretical grounding of her work draws from the history of science, philosophy, speculative fiction and eco-horror.

Her work has also been shown at New York's Rubin Museum (2021-22); the Sea Art Festival in Busan, South Korea (2021); the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (2021); Ku[n]stLeuven City Festival in Belgium (2021); Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber in the United Arab Emirates (2019); Kaserne Basel (2019); the Museu d'Art Contemporanide Barcelona (2018); 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art (2018); Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas (2018, 2016); Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum (2018, 2016); Lisbon's Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) (2016); ZKM Karlsruhe (2016); Singapore's ArtScience Museum (2016); London's Whitechapel Gallery (2016); 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2014); and the first Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Kerala, India (2012).

Devasher was named the 2024 Deutsch Bank Artist of the Year. In 2023, she was a dual resident at Arts at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland, and the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS-TIFR) in Bengaluru, India. Her residency is one of two awarded by Connect India, a collaboration between Arts at CERN and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetica. The artist's past residencies include Cove Park, in Cove, Scotland (2022); London's Open Data Institute (2021-22); Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas (2016); the Anthropocene Campus at Berlin's Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HWK) (2016); the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (2014); the Glasgow Print Studio (2014); and, in Berlin, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (2012). In 2018, she spent 26 days as artist-in-residence on an oil tanker traveling from Fiji to Singapore as part of The Owner's Cabin Residency Program.

Rohini Devasher holds a BFA in painting from New Delhi's College of Art and an MFA in printmaking from the Winchester School of Art at the University of Southampton in the UK. She is co-represented by Project 88 in Mumbai, India.