Vikram Divecha's playful and poetic works rely on what he calls "found processes," in which the artist inserts himself and observes how individuals navigate, experiment with, and bypass these systems. Short Circuits features essays, interviews, and documentation that highlight Vikram Divecha's interest in the often invisible structures of planning, construction, demolition and maintenance. It centres on his long-term collaborations with workers, contractors and decision-makers who shape the cities of the United Arab Emirates and beyond.
Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, in 2024.
Beirut-born, Mumbai-bred, Vikram Divecha works between New York and Dubai. He holds an MFA in Visual Art from Columbia University (2019) and was a participant of the Whitney Museum's Independent Study program (2019-20). Divecha's projects often bring invisible structures into plain view, to raise questions about agency, ethics and value. This he arrives at by challenging the nature and modes of artistic production. By pushing the means of production into a social realm Divecha's projects turn into sites for new relationships—where authorship and aesthetics are questioned, while agency gets shifted. Meaning making is not limited to the reception of the artwork but emerges within the social processes of artistic production itself—for more than participants he seeks an aesthetic participation. Divecha has come to define this conceptual and collaborative approach around what he calls "found processes"—those forces and capacities at work within state, social, economic and industrial spheres. Working with available material, space and labour Divecha attempts to realign the social and urban systems we inhabit by introducing alterations and interventions.
Despite interacting with largely invisible systems, his works have a definite materiality and formal rigour. Divecha's engagements translate into site-specific works, public art, installations, video, photography and drawings.
Vikram Divecha's work has been exhibited internationally at the 57th Venice Biennale's UAE National Pavilion UAE, the 13th Sharjah Biennial, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Centre of Contemporary Art (Warsaw) and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (New York).
