Multiverse Dreaming, 2021

Suite of 12 lightjet prints on archival paper. First exhibited as part of Born In Flames: Feminist Futures at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, April 28, 2021 - September 12, 2021. Curated by Jasmine Wahi.

Multiverse Dreaming (2021), a suite of twelve digital prints of varying sizes, forms Chitra Ganesh’s fourth complete comic series and a continuation of a larger body of work inspired by the Amar Chitra Katha, a popular comic book composed of Indian mythologies and epic Indian historical tales. 

Ganesh’s deliberately non-linear narrative centers on themes of reflection and regeneration in times of uncertainty, and is situated cyclically in time at the intersection of winter and spring. Informed, in part, by an increased sense of solitude over the course of a pandemic, the work also considers the power of collective dreams, collective consciousness and universally held archetypes that are both primordial and future-facing.

The characters and imagery throughout the series draw on broad-ranging symbols of rebirth, including Birth of Venus, Mami Wata, Mahishasura Mardini, figures from tarot, Jung’s anima, the phoenix and other icons of femininity and power. Multiverse Dreaming is also inspired by Iconologia, a book by Cesare Ripa from 1593 which explores traditions of articulating moral emblems and psychic states in figurative form.