Bringing together four significant works created between 2008 and 2026, the display is primarily installed across the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Sculpture Galleries at V&A South Kensington. A new monumental bronze sculpture, Gaia (2026), will be unveiled for the first time on the Exhibition Road Courtyard. Embodying the strength of a warrior and the generative force of the primordial mother goddess, Gaia invites visitors to reflect on home and belonging, offering a powerful meditation on protection, resilience and our relationship to the worlds we create, both within and beyond ourselves. Kher’s sculptures navigate the intersections of mythology, womanhood and cultural identity,
tracing the ever-shifting processes of transformation that define lived experience. Living and working between London and New Delhi, Kher has developed a distinctive sculptural language shaped by movement across cultures. Through acts of collecting, reassembling and casting bodies alongside found objects, she brings together fragments of multiple and often opposing narratives. Her works are animated by the energy and tension that emerge from these encounters.

At the heart of Kher’s practice is the female body, rendered through sculptural forms that blur the fantastical and the real. A place where the physical and the metaphysical converge as spaces of possibility, pushing the boundaries between human and nature, ecology and mythology. Referencing the traditions of European sculpture, while incorporating materials and visual vocabularies associated with South Asian cultures like saris or bindis, Khe reimagines established narratives through a contemporary lens. Hybrid beings, human-animal forms and fragmented bodies recur throughout her work. This display brings together Gaia (2026), Ghost (2024), Animus Mundi (2018) and Warrior with Cloak and Shield (2008), highlighting key themes that have shaped Kher's practice for over three decades. Installed among the V&A’s collections, these sculptures engage with and expand the stories told within the galleries.

“Art can connect us between continents and cultures and across time. It is a visceral and cognitive language of its own making.” – Bharti Kher