
Thasil Suhara Backer
he/they
Thasil Suhara Backer is a self-taught interdisciplinary art practitioner, researcher, and writer, formally trained in Theatre Arts. He is a self-identifying neurodivergent individual. In his practice, he has developed hybrid forms of synthesizing photography and has produced sculptural assemblages, performances, and essays to examine vernacular meta-relics. His practice navigates ordinary, geopolitical, and archival landscapes and locations across the archipelago.
Selected Group Exhibitions:
-
5th Peru Bienal, (PE) (2026).
-
Vantage Point Sharjah 12, Sharjah Art Foundation, Curated by Sara Al Mheiri, Curator, SAF, (UAE) (2024).
-
Permanent Conference, Curated by Shristi Sainani, Gallery Navya, Delhi Art Week, (IN) (2023).
-
51st Annual exhibition, Kerala Lalitkala Academy (IN) (2023).
Selected Group OVR:
-
CODED. , Terrain.art, (IN) (2026).
-
Deep Objekt [ ]: Agency at the Computational Turn, Foreign Objekt, (US) (2024).
-
Care is Art, Art is Care, Insight of an Eco Artist & Underground Art and Design (UAAD), (US) (2024).
Selected Contributions:
-
Looking Back at Malayalam Cinema with SR Praveen, Impart, a unit of Art & Photography Foundation India, (IN) (2026).
-
A Subversive Iconography of Apasmara the Dwarf, Impart, a unit of Art & Photography Foundation India, (IN) (2026).
-
Spatial Palimpsests: Inhabiting History, Ecology, and the Personal, Critical Collective, (IN) (2026).
-
Third Bodies: Unsettling Natures in the Posthuman Ecologies, Writing Natures Magazine, Issue 2, Shared Ecologies (IN) (2026).
-
Ruins of Egmore, Impart, a unit of Art & Photography Foundation India, (IN) (2026).
-
How to get ready for a protest, Home is Where the Hearts Strives, Anthology on Place and Sound, Norient Sound, (CH) (2025).
-
Dialogical Body – Breathing in the ruins, Ocean / Uni, TBA21 – Academy, (IT) (2025).
-
Performing Mobility: A Performer’s Counter Archive, Issue 20, Hakara: Bilingual Journal of Creative Expression, (IN) (2023).
-
Contemporary Pollution, Elephant in the Room, Conflictorium, (IN) & Stroom Den Haag, (NL) (2022).
Awards/Fellowships/Grants:
-
Young Writer's Award in Photography presented by PhotoSouthAsia and Critical Collective (CC), (IN) (2026).
-
Art Practice Programme - Explorations, India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund, (IN) (2023).
-
Young Artist Fellowship, Ministry of Culture, Government of India (2013–2014).