A warm kind of panic

There is a comforting panic in this weight, a heaviness that steadies even as it presses. The rug extends a muted invitation into the room, asking the body to come closer, to settle momentarily within its folds.

Artists

Monika (University of Rajasthan, Jaipur)

Medium

Oil on Canvas, Acrylic on rug

Venue

BMS Warehouse, Opposite Holy Cross Church Mattancherry (Kuriachante Nada)

Timings

10AM to 6PM (Mon to Sunday)

Till March 31st, 2026

About

There is a comforting panic in this weight, a heaviness that steadies even as it presses. The rug extends a muted invitation into the room, asking the body to come closer, to settle momentarily within its folds.

A warm kind of panic begins from the quiet turbulence of everyday experience—the subtle frictions, doubts, and distances that gather beneath the surface of routine life. Monika draws from instances that shape the individual self, tracing how relationships, environments, and internal thresholds leave impressions difficult to name or contain.

Within institutional tendencies that turn certain bodies and their realities into footnotes, these conflicts, emotional gaps, and the fragile discomfort of solitude surface in every crack and window of the space.

Moving through shifting internal rhythms, the work holds space for choices and hesitations that create constant dislocation—swinging in and out of isolation. The rug invites the body closer. A heaviness that steadies even as it presses, acknowledging the psychological states that dwell in these gestures.

Presence. Residue. The traces we cannot leave behind.

Kochi Biennale 2025