Exhibition traces Indian visual storytelling through millennia
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Cartoonist Amruta Patil curated “A Moving Line” which opened at MAP Bengaluru on July 24, bringing together over 250 works from temple carvings to contemporary graphic novels.
Patil aimed to show the long history of sequential visual storytelling in India, presenting items not as a strict timeline but as a collection of connected ideas.
The exhibition includes artifacts like temple friezes, traditional pattachitra scrolls, early comics from the Tagore and Ray families, and modern webcomics, prompting reflection on how different audiences experience art created for patrons, devotees, or individual readers. Patil, who published India’s first queer graphic novel Kari in 2008, noted a lack of archiving of original artwork in India and a tendency to undervalue it.
She believes that celebrating existing work is crucial, particularly as a first generation of Indian graphic novelists re-examine how history is recorded. She hopes to highlight the power of a visual line to connect people and tell stories across time. The exhibition also addresses the influence of Western comics on the Indian form, while asserting the existence of indigenous traditions of sequential art predating them.
Patil emphasized the importance of valuing Indian storytelling without seeking validation from the Global North and intends to showcase the unique qualities of Indian art and narrative. She is currently working on a painting for an exhibition in Nice and a new book titled The Rihlah.
