Mrinalini Mukherjee and Her Circle, 2025

Location London

Client Royal Academy of Arts

Curators Tarini Malik, Rebecca Bray,

Collaborators Sthuthi Ramesh - graphic design, The White Wall Company - build

In giving form to the narrative of Mrinalini Mukherjee and her circle, Msoma Architects extend their own practice’s ongoing inquiry into how spatial design can deconstruct colonial hierarchies of knowledge and production, while reimagining sustainability through cultural continuity. By engaging the Baroda School’s synthesis of modernism and vernacular crafts, the design foregrounds how decolonial practice in art can align with decarbonised practice in architecture. Msoma’s approach begins from the same philosophical ground that shaped Mrinalini Mukherjee’s artistic circle: an insistence that modernity in the postcolonial context must grow from indigenous roots, drawing from the earth rather than imported paradigms. Thus, the exhibition design is conceived as both an architectural and ecological gesture, an act of making that resists the extractive logic of colonial modernism by foregrounding the regenerative power of clay and the cyclical transfer of knowledge between generations of artists.

At the heart of the design are two primary geometries - the circle and the square -which together structure the visitor’s movement and perception throughout the galleries. The circle, representing Mrinalini Mukherjee herself, becomes a recurring motif that anchors the exhibition narrative, connecting the works of her mentors, peers, and family members in a continuous rhythm of alignment and tension. The square, highlights influences from her mentors, parents and the institutions, the Kala Bhavana in Santiniketan and the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda, that shaped the intellectual and artistic ecosystem of South Asian modernism. These forms interlock spatially in the exhibition echoing the dynamic interplay between individual artistic intuition and collective learning. This geometry becomes more than a visual device - it is a spatial manifestation of relational art history, mapping the intersections between people, pedagogy, and place that defined Mukherjee’s creative world.

Materially, Msoma Architects extends the Baroda School’s decolonial philosophy into the built environment. The exhibition is constructed using earth-based plasters, natural pigments, and clay surfaces, drawing tactile continuity between the works on display and the plinths that frame them. These materials are sourced and fabricated through recyclable processes conceived in collaboration with the White Wall Company, reaffirming the studio’s commitment to sustainable temporary exhibition practices. This is the third exhibition designed by Msoma Architects that uses clay, both as an elemental and cyclical material, to connect the context of the exhibition back to the land. This grounding in material honesty stands in quiet resistance to the polished neutrality often found in Western museology, instead offering an environment that is feminine, breathes, absorbs light, and carries the patina of its making.

Photos by Thomas Adank