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Hema Upadhyay

Killed on December 11 in still unclear circumstances, Hema Upadhyay was one of the most interesting figures of the Indian art scene, known for her small installations.

Exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery in London, at MAXXI in Rome, at Centre Pompidou in Paris at Venice Biennale, Hema Upadhyay was one of the best representatives of the Indian art scene.

In her artwork she often addressed the issue of migration, experienced firsthand when the war Indo-Pakistani forced her to leave her hometown in the north of the country to settle in Mumbai.

a sinistra</b>: Hema Upadhyay, <i>The Great Game, Padiglione Iran, Biennale d'Arte di Venezia, 2015. Photo © PET, courtesy Studio La Città. <b>A destra</b>: Hema Upadhyay, <i>Killing Site IV</i>, 2008. Photo courtesy Studio La Città — **Top and above, on the left**: Hema Upadhyay, *The Great Game*, Iranian Pavilion, Biennale d'Arte di Venezia, 2015. Photo © PET, courtesy Studio La Città. **Right**: Hema Upadhyay, *Killing Site IV*, 2008. Photo courtesy Studio La Città

For “The Great Game”, the Iranian pavilion at the Venice Biennale, curated by Marco Meneguzzo and Mazdak Faiznia, she made a series of clay birds, symbolic of migration issues but through psychological elements which look at the mindest of immigrated/displaced bird/human populations: “when we look at them, do we thing of problems of migrations? Do we consider the elegant mimicry of their plumage as a sign that they are displayng themselves as something other than they are, as often happens in social relationships, above all if undertaken by immigrants who feel themselves foreigners in the place they have ended up in?” Marco Meneguzzo wrote.

Born in 1972, Hema Upadhyay was killed along with her lawyer in the night of 11 December in Mumbai, for reasons still unknown.