Purvai Rai's 'Cartography of the Grounded Sky' at Gladwell Projects

Key facts

• Exhibition 'Cartography of the Grounded Sky' by Purvai Rai is on view at Gladwell Projects, Jersey City, USA, until August 21, 2026.
• The exhibition is held at the Arts & Powerhouse Building.
• Rai draws inspiration from her childhood in Punjab, India, and maps Sikh cosmology and philosophy onto agricultural land and domestic courtyards.
• The exhibition features multimedia works using materials like compressed rice husks, wood, hand-woven cotton thread, oil paint, gold leaf, and silver leaf.
• A scaled recreation of a 'haveli gate' in fabric serves as an entrance to the exhibition.
• During the 2025 floods in Punjab, Rai's family haveli opened its doors to volunteers and displaced villagers.
• Works from series include 'Geometry of Yield', 'Soil Composition', 'Turning Gold', 'Untitled', 'Until Harvest', 'Raindrop', 'What I see when it rains', and 'One Harvest Season'.
• Fabric works in 'One Harvest Season' were made in collaboration with artisans Rohini Kaur, Rajni Bala, Rajwant Kaur, Geeta Sing, and Manpreet Kaur from Nawannpind, Punjab.
• Rai's work explores the coterminous nature of the sacred and material, and the divine as omnipresent like carbon.