SAHEJ RAHAL’S WAYFINDER SET TO DEBUT AT NAIROBI CONTEMPORARY ART INSTITUTE

The Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) is excited to present Wayfinder, a solo exhibition by acclaimed Indian artist Sahej Rahal, marking Rahal’s debut in Kenya and East Africa.

Wayfinder opens on November 21, 2024, and runs through March 1, 2025. Through Wayfinder, viewers are invited into Rahal’s universe, where myth, narrative, imagination, and technology converge to reshape conventional perceptions of reality, inviting audiences to become active participants in his evolving cosmology. Rahal’s artistic journey spans a range of mediums, including sculpture, performance, video, and digital media.

The showcase will feature two major video works alongside selected drawings from The Book of Missing Pages (2018-2023) and three newly created sculptures. Distributed Mind Test (2023), a multiplayer video game, immerses players in a world shrouded in perpetual night, where they embody fragmented thoughts within a young non-human creature navigating a post-human landscape. 

Another work, Anhad (2023), offers an interactive AI experience in which viewers encounter an AI entity whose limbs carry recordings of Hindustani music that resonate through a digital forest, generating an endless melody based on audio from the physical world. Wayfinder marks the first exhibition to bring these works together, providing a multifaceted view into Rahal’s expansive creative ecosystem. 

The exhibition reflects Rahal’s interest in storytelling and myth-making as pathways to explore alternative modes of existence. Rahal views his work as an invitation for audiences to ‘actively participate in how this narrative evolves.’ Each piece serves as a portal into speculative worlds, prompting viewers to explore, question, and engage in co-creating a new mythic landscape. Through Rahal’s fictional worlds, audiences reexamine their place within established narratives, encouraged to envision and inhabit realms beyond the familiar.