Mycelium to Miyawaki forests at India Art Fair 2026

Explore the transformative art at India Art Fair 2026, highlighting ecological realities through innovative installations and critical engagement.

Dumiduni Illangasinghe has always been “very serious about mushrooms” — just not in the way you’d imagine a 29-year-old to be. From the rain-washed fields of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka where she grew up, to the forests of the Banaras Hindu University where she is currently studying, the artist has made the fungi her primary subject of observation. In the fragility and endurance of mycelial networks, she reads metaphysical lessons: specifically the Buddhist concept of “anitya” or impermanence.

At the India Art Fair 2026, where Illangasinghe is the first international artist in residence, she will present an installation titled Soft Armours, where she will turn broken glass bangles, traditionally considered harbingers of misfortune in South Asian societies, into delicate sculptures entwined with mycelial forms. “I want the viewer to see that broken bangles can also generate beauty, they can take on a new form and we can make new life with them,” she explains.

Dumiduni Illangasinghe

Soft Armours, where broken glass bangles transform into delicate sculptures entwined with mycelial forms

This philosophical engagement with ecological systems reflects a broader shift among emerging artists at the fair’s 17th edition (which, with 133 exhibitors from around the world, a star-studded speaker series, deeper engagement with design, and ever stronger IAF Parallel programmes, only gets larger in scope and strength each year).

According to director Jaya Asokan, this might be a sign of a generational reckoning. “What distinguishes these practices is their refusal of a romanticised return to ‘nature’,” she observes. “Instead, artists are engaging critically with stressed systems, agriculture, fungal networks, urban growth and extractive economies, through material experimentation and research-based approaches.” All reflective of the times and its very many conflicts.