About
Akshay Mahajan (b. 1985, India) is an artist, photographer and cultural practitioner whose work looks at the ways histories persist within landscapes, objects, images and collective memory. Working across photography, archives, found material, collage and installation, his practice moves between postcolonial cities, vernacular histories, folklore and myth, examining how the past continues to shape the social and material worlds of the present.
His long-term projects often begin with photographs but expand through archival research, oral histories and encounters with objects and material culture. He is particularly interested in the friction between institutional and vernacular forms of memory: what enters the archive, what remains outside it, and how histories altered or obscured by colonialism might be encountered again through images.
Mahajan’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 13th Bamako Encounters, Cairo Biennale, Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Athens Photo Festival, Encontros da Imagem, Singapore International Photography Festival, Fotofestiwal Łódź and Photo London. In 2026, People of Clay is presented at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery as part of Bristol Photo Festival, alongside a new body of work developed in conversation with the museum’s collections. His recent exhibitions also include Roots of the Earth at Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, and presentations at Backlight Festival, PhMuseum Days and Foto Bali.
He was runner-up for the Aperture Portfolio Prize in 2023, named a Foam Talent for 2024–25, and received the Verzasca Photo Award in 2024. In 2026, he was a finalist for the Nikon Emerging Photographer award at Photo London. He has been awarded a Pro Helvetia artist residency at the Sitterwerk Foundation’s Werkstoffarchiv in St Gallen, Switzerland, for 2027.
Alongside his artistic practice, Mahajan works as a curator, writer and educator. In 2008, he co-founded Blindboys.org, a collective that experimented with ways of bringing photography into public space. His curatorial projects have included GoaPhoto, Goa Familia, Serendipity Arts Festival and Kagazii Pairahan: Publishing and Resistance in South Asia, presented in Arles, New York, Ahmedabad and Goa.
His work and writing have appeared in publications including the Financial Times Magazine, Aperture, Foam Magazine, The Caravan, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Le Monde Diplomatique and The Paris Review.