Amshu MS

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA under Explorations will explore the impact of rock mining on Hyderabad's landscape using experimental film, sound, choreography, and speculative fiction to create non-linear, alternate cartographies. Amshu MS is the Coordinator for this project. 

Amshu MS (aka Amshu Chukki) is a visual artist based in Bengaluru, India, who has a BVA and MVA from Maharaja Sayajirao University Baroda. Amshu has established an international presence through a series of notable solo exhibitions, including After Albert Steiner (2024), Engadine Diaries (2023), and Liquid Petrology (2022) in Switzerland, alongside major shows like Different Danny And Other Stories (2022) in Chatterje & Lal, Mumbai and 1Shanthiroad, Bengaluru. His work has been featured in prominent group exhibitions globally, such as the Chennai Photo Biennale (2019), and at venues like Zuzeum Art Centre in Riga, Latvia, and Forde in Geneva. A frequent participant in prestigious international residencies, including the Artists at Glenfiddich 2024 International Residency Programme and the St Moritz Art Academy, Amshu’s multidisciplinary approach also extends to film, with his works being screened at festivals like the St Moritz Art Film Festival. Recognised early in his career, he was a recipient of the Forbes 30 under 30 for Visual Arts (2016) and the Inlaks Fine Arts Award (2014), underscoring his compelling contribution to contemporary art. Given his experience, Amshu MS is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

The project with the working title Secret Petrological Society, is a film and archive-based exploration examining the extensive geological impact and landscape erasure caused by rock mining in Hyderabad, where the artist spent his formative years. Amshu's practice, which moves across experimental film, drawing, sound, and text, explores how landscapes act as witnesses to social, political, and ecological upheavals. The project traces Hyderabad's long history of extraction, from the mining of Golconda diamonds under the Qutb Shahi dynasty, with poetic sound references to the “enduring legends of the lost Golconda diamond mines” in Quli Qutub Shah’s Deccani love poems, to the contemporary mining of rocks for speculative real estate. Working against traditional documentary forms, the project will challenge dominant historiographies by using speculative fiction, oral histories, and fieldwork to create layered, non-linear narratives.

A central component will be the sound score, which will interweave ambient quarry recordings and testimonies from migrant workers with an orchestral composition based on 16th-century Dakhni love poems by the city’s founder, Quli Qutub Shah. The project will also incorporate a choreographic collaboration with rock climbers and dancers to develop a physical vocabulary that responds directly to the blasted quarry landscape, creating a "bodily cartography" of the terrain. Ultimately, Secret Petrological Society will reframe Hyderabad as a terrain in flux, offering alternate cartographies grounded in movement, sound, and collective memory. The project will be in artistic collaboration with choreographer and dancer Anishaa Tavag, along with citizen activists and climbers Saritha Koganti and Renuka Pechetti, to develop a physical vocabulary that responds directly to the blasted quarry landscape.

The outcome of the project will be an experimental film, a sound score and choreography. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the audio-visual documentation of the artistic process, a film, and a sound score.   

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Practice programme in the manner in which it attempts to artistically respond to the fast changing rock landscape of a mediaeval city, poetically connecting to its roots, and activating the spaces through multiple dimensions of art, including poetry, film, sound and choreography.    

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm by convening an online gathering of artists coordinating Explorations projects. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees. 

This project is supported by Parijat Foundation.