Moonis Ahmad (b. 1992, Kashmir) is a visual artist whose practice transverses various media, including installation, sculpture, computer programming, sound, and video. His work conjures the afterlives of the dead and the deceased as a means to speculate the emergence of counter-worlds that challenge established states of power at the margins. These lives, which refuse to die, emerge as specters in his work, challenging the chronological understanding of time and the territorialization of space. Through such phantoms, Moonis speculates alternate ideas of time and being, intersecting various marginalities and temporalities to explore the human condition that is inherently at an outbreak and yet, in a constant state of invisibility and exception. In 2021, he completed his doctoral research at The University of Melbourne. Moonis has exhibited both nationally and internationally and has participated in various residential programs, including a three- month residency at Stadtgalerie & HSLU in Switzerland, organized by Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council. He was awarded the Schloss Solitude Fellowship, Germany for 2023-24. He was the recipient of the Arts House Makeshift Publics Programme 2022-23 in Melbourne, Australia, and the Foundation of Indian Contemporary Art’s Emerging Artist Award in 2017-18. He is one of the participating artists in Kochi Biennale 2025 edition. Currently, Moonis works between Kashmir and Melbourne.
Moonis Ahmad Shah
GUL-E-CURFEW: AN INDEX OF THE STRANGE AND INCONSISTENT PHANTOMS FROM EVERYWHERE
Gul-e-Curfew: An Index of Strange and inconsistent phantoms from everywhere speculates how ecology as an organism responds and adapts to territorial conflicts and their environmental impact. The work indexes various biological beings, ranging from flowers to abstract organisms supposedly emanating within the sub terrains of contested ecologies and territories. The collection of such beings is presented in the form of a book consisting of images and text. The text, presented in an indexical format, provides information about the beings, such as their names, classifications, life spans, and ecological becoming. With its lexiconic design, the book acts as a metaphor that seeks to challenge the taxonomical arrangement of ecologies by regimes of power in contested sites. It aims to depart from anthropocentric narratives of colonisation and the subsequent decolonial struggles. Furthermore, it aims to re-imagine ecologies as militant processes thus moving away from the colonial representation of ecologies as passive pastoral objects.