Exhibition Abstract

By intersecting themes of contemporary queer pop culture, Indian iconographies, and Arjun Lal’s own lived experiences and future fantasies, Shrines and Rituals is a speculation on post-colonial world-building through the medium of textiles, sculpture, performance and photography. From the perspective of a second-generation member of Indian Diaspora, Lal reimagines ways of existing through characters, dress and environments. In referencing symbolism and deities from Indian iconographies, such as Kali, the goddess of death and rebirth, Lal opens a portal to dream up what queerness, kink, culture and spirituality can be; sacred, authentic, and new.

Lal reflects on inspirations for Shrines and Rituals:

Role-play is everywhere—in gestures, in touch, in exchanged power, and in the boundaries we maintain. I am fascinated by the roles we inhabit—whether inherited, assigned, assumed, or chosen. These roles reveal the subtle, often unspoken performances that shape desire, intimacy, and social life. Some roles exist as rigid binaries, particularly in intimate relationships: top, bottom, dominant, submissive, active, passive, husband, or wife. Others are embedded in broader society: teacher, student, parent, security guard, tax-collector, or oppressor. 

I have invested in the roles of “gay man” and “queer non-binary person”—it’s what I know how to be. Though I wonder what it would be like to be something else and how that might impact my experience of sensation. The more I feel — the more I feel alive.

Throughout my life, I have moved through many roles, alongside others performing theirs, a continuous choreography of expectation, negotiation, and consent. When roles harden—when I am trapped in one, or others cling too tightly to theirs—sensation becomes constricted, reduced to the repetitions of role-specific instructions. While I am alive, I want to feel as much as possible, to inhabit the fullness of experience. I wonder: do repeated sensations disintegrate, intensify, or peak?

I am compelled by the possibility of liberating, reimagining, and fluidly exchanging roles, opening wider pathways to sensation and intimacy. What new desires, pleasures, and intimacies might emerge if vulnerability, curiosity, and consent guide performance rather than hierarchy or tradition?

Artist Biography

Arjun Lal is an interdisciplinary artist based between Kjipuktuk and Berlin. Through playful and otherworldly explorations of identity, experience, and cultural trajectory, Lal uses sculpture and performance to fuel cultural critique, shifts, and possibilities for new ways of being.

In response to their experiences navigating contemporary queer culture as a person from Indian ancestry, Lal’s works are confrontational. Driven by an ongoing desire for a queerer world, his works equip audiences with symbols, colours, shapes, actions, perspective, gestures… fragments of conversations and dreams carefully assembled into social/cultural abstraction. Lal is fascinated by the roles we inhabit—whether inherited, assigned, assumed, or chosen. They explore the choreography of expectation, sensation, and liberation from the unspoken repetitions of role-specific instructions.

Tactile Objects (welcome station)

The works on the wall and on the hangers are not to be touched.

There are tactile objects associated with the gallery displayed works, provided by the artists, to be explored through touch, available at the welcome station. The following is a description of those objects:

• 4 x 2D tactile illustrations of the costume masks hanging on the clothing masks and featured in the video.

• 1 x 2D tactile illustration of the large mural. The mural can be touched to feel the wheat paste application.

• Latex and leather sample materials swatches used in the construction of the costumes.

• Bronzed body part. A cast of the artist’s anus is available as a tactile object. It is one of the objects installed on the wall and featured in the video.

• Kautuka thread, smoky red and tumeric yellow coloured thread used to wrap the hangers in the show.

• Two tactile maps are available for the show. The first is a 2D map showing a top-down (bird’s-eye view) of the gallery and full first floor, including the media lab and washroom. The second map is a 3D dollhouse, which only depicts the gallery and has clay and paper objects to help orient you and assist with wayfinding through the gallery. Both maps are used as references in the creative audio tour on tracks online and on the yoto player in gallery.

• There are colouring sheets in the media lab.

Exhibition Titles in Watercolour

This exhibition continues grunt gallery’s transition away from using vinyl for titles. Our current exhibition signage and show titles are hand-painted using Beam watercolours in gold and yellow.

This method, developed by the Centre for Sustainable Curating, minimizes our reliance on vinyl and allows for a clean, waste-free removal process between exhibitions. We are thrilled to implement this innovative technique.

Jessica Fletcher, our archives assistant, introduced us to this process in the spring after seeing it presented at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, where she also serves as the Exhibitions and Collections Assistant.

Volunteer Cera Dong and exhibition manager Kay Slater hand-painted the lettering for this show, resulting in the hand painted lettering. Throughout 2026, we look forward to further exploring this sustainable approach in our upcoming exhibitions.

For additional resources regarding sustainable installation and curation, please visit https://sustainablecurating.ca/.

Exhibition Works

Bronze Cast, 2026

Visual Description:

Two suspended, sculptural elements. They hang from thin metal rods that project perpendicularly from the wall. The top rod holds a coat hanger which is entirely wrapped in a kautuka thread coloured a smoked, paprika red with a turmeric yellow. From the centre of the hanger, a single strand of the same thread hangs downward, and from this thread are suspended four bronze cast body parts, arranged in the suggestion of a face. Two nipple casts — each including the areola — serve as the eyes. A nose cast is positioned below them. And finally, an anus cast forms the mouth: it has a naturally oval outline, and where the cast dimples inward toward the cavity, it takes on a resemblance to lips. Together, the four pieces create a quiet, composed face assembled from intimate parts of the body. The metal has a warm gold tone and a matte to lightly polished finish. The lower rod is positioned lower and features a cast of a foreskin, attached directly to the end of the rod so that it protrudes outward from the wall. Behind it, where the piece meets the rod, a double strand of the red and yellow thread loops and trails.

Nandi reclining in a field

Visual Description:

A large-scale wheat paste photograph shows the artist wearing the Cow Nandi costume, reclining in a field of grass dotted with bright, high-contrast dandelions. 

The artist’s brown skin is in vivid contrast against the greens and yellows of the field, and against the white latex of the costume. The costume’s single inflated udder is prominent at the centre of the image, which Cow Nandi holds in one hand. A circular cutout in the translucent face panel of the headpiece reveals their tongue, extended in a gesture that reads like Cow Nandi panting.

Costumes and masks on display in gallery and within the video:

Note: the descriptions are written as the costumes appear in the video playing in the media lab at grunt gallery.

Cow Nandi:

An inflatable white latex headpiece shaped like a marshmallow heart with a smooth cloud-like silhouette. The head is significantly larger than the wearer’s head and shoulders and extends outward beyond the body. Two drooping ears project from either side and two horns rise from the forehead. The horns are black at the base and transition to a pale gold toward their pointed tips.

Two tall oval openings reveal the wearer’s eyes as well as parts of their forehead and hairline. A horizontal oval opening at the centre of the muzzle exposes the mouth. The muzzle area is a natural latex colour – close to the colour of kaju badam kulfi – a frozen dairy dessert with cashews and almonds – a milky colour with a light amber hue that contrasts with the white surface of the headpiece.

The bodysuit is a sleeveless, cream-coloured one-piece garment resembling an infant’s onesie. The arms and legs remain bare. At the centre of the abdomen is a raised inflatable form from which a single oversized pink udder protrudes forward.

Elephant Ganesh:

An inflatable latex headpiece shaped like an elephant’s head. The mask is bright pink and highly reflective. Its wide ears extend outward in the same plane as the face, creating a broad, flattened silhouette.

Two small circular openings reveal the wearer’s eyes. Between them, an inflated trunk projects forward from the face before curving sharply downward and inward at its tip. The head and trunk are formed as a single continuous inflatable shape.

In the video, the wearer is dressed in cocoa-brown satin pajamas consisting of a long-sleeved button-up shirt and matching pants. White piping outlines the cuffs, collar, and front placket.

Maa Kali:

The suit consists of a hood, vest, and pants.

The hood is made of black material and covers the entire head. Two gold vertical stripes run down the centre of the face from forehead to mouth. Large eye openings are edged with pearly white horizontal paisley forms accented with gold detailing. The mouth opening is occupied by a red ball gag composed of a series of graduated spheres that extend outward from the face – like a long tongue. The wearer’s beard remains visible beneath the lower edge of the mask.

The sleeveless vest is worn open at the front. It has wide grey leather edging around the arm openings, front edges, and hem. The rest of the vest is made of banarasi silk that is patterned with dense metallic gold dots against a black background. The lower front corners curve inward in quarter-circle shapes.

The pants are glossy black leather and fit closely to the body.

Alien:

The suit consists of an inflatable mask and a sleeveless kurta.

The mask is an elongated, inflated oval form in pale teal – similar to an upside down raindrop. It rises approximately three times the height of the wearer’s face, with most of its volume extending above the head. The lower front surface is recessed to create a fitted face opening with holes around the eyes and mouth

Large eye openings reveal the wearer’s eyes and portions of the eyebrows. A vertical seam or zipper runs between the eyes toward a small white mouth opening. The wearer’s beard is visible through the lower opening, while the rest of the face is enclosed by the tight-fitting latex.

The kurta is sleeveless and falls to approximately knee height. It is made of opaque pearlescent latex in a pale cream colour.

Jewelry and Coins:

A collection of brass and bronze objects, including bangles and coin-like forms. The bangles vary in diameter and width, ranging from narrow rings to broad cuffs. Several of the coins are slightly domed or curved and feature embossed surface textures. The metal has a warm gold tone and a matte to lightly polished finish.

“Mango”:

A human-sized inflatable latex form with an elongated oval body and pointed top. The shape completely encloses the wearer, obscuring the body beneath.

The front half of the form is bright yellow. Toward the pointed upper tip, the surface divides into green and red sections. These colours continue around the back of the form, where approximately half the surface is green and half is red.

A black zipper emerges from the bottom centre and extends upward several inches. Although the latex is opaque, the shape of the body inside occasionally becomes visible where the material stretches or presses outward against the inflatable surface.

Shrines and Ritual Video

Visual Summary:

A single performer portrays four characters, each appearing alone against a black background: Cow Nandi, Elephan Ganesh, Maa Kali, and the Alien.

Throughout the video, bronze body parts and brass jewelry pieces become tokens in a dice-style game. As the pairs play each other, the winner of each round demands a price from the other. Cow Nandi is made to give up their milk, and Kali Maa is awarded the wish of a dance. The final two minutes of the film features a dancing mango.

Creative Access Audio Tour – Transcript

Introduction

Welcome to grunt gallery’s creative access audio tour of Shrines and Rituals, the exhibition project by artist, Arjun Lal. My name is Kay Slater. I am a white, hard-of-hearing, queer settler on these stolen and unceded Coast Salish lands. As the accessibility and exhibitions manager and preparator here at grunt, I assisted in installing this work. I wrote and narrated this tour today, so any pronunciation errors or cultural misrepresentations are on me. We welcome your feedback as we develop more creative access tools for our gallery and exhibitions.

This tour has four chapters in 12 parts. At the start of each chapter, you will hear this sound of a page turning:

[Page turning]

First is this intro. In Chapter One, I will detail entering the space and orienting yourself in the gallery. In Chapter Two, I’ll describe our welcome station and the objects available for you to use and touch. Chapter Three covers our facilities, washrooms, and C-Care stations. If you’re ready to tour the show, skip to Chapter Four, where I will walk you through the show. If you are skipping ahead, be aware that the welcome station has 2 tactile maps to help you navigate this tour. When I move to a new artwork, you will hear this sound of cello:

[Cello]

Each artwork description within Chapter Four is divided into its own audio part so you can skip or return to an artwork description as you move through the show at your own pace.

Let’s get started with Chapter One.

[Page turning]

Chapter 1: Physically Entering the Space

When approaching grunt gallery at 350 East Second Avenue from the accessible drop-off on Great Northern Way, follow the sidewalk to the building’s main entrance. Turn left at the entrance, and you’ll find us at the first exterior door, unit 116. A low-grade ramp leads to our front double doors, with automatic door buttons at waist and ankle level on a post to the right. Be cautious of the small lip at the threshold, a potential tripping hazard. Excluding Thursdays, masks are now optional and only recommended indoors at grunt; if you forgot yours, we have extras near the entrance and will not enforce their use outside of Thursdays for low-sensory and voice-off visiting hours.

Welcome to grunt gallery! We are situated on the occupied, stolen, and ancestral territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7meshHunʼqumiʼnum and Squamish Language speaking peoples, specifically the land of the X’wmuthqueyem, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and SelilwitulhMusqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil Waututh peoples and families. We are grateful to be here.

The current show has many installations on the ground and jutting from the wall. While there is space to walk, the show is dense with work. If you require assistance and are not greeted by staff upon entry, please call for help. Staff are in the office and will assist you as soon as possible. We are always happy to walk the show with you. The public gallery space is a white cube with 20-foot walls on three sides and a 12-foot south wall that opens for 8 feet before reaching the ceiling, providing light to the loft office space beyond. The office is not visible from the gallery, except for a large convex mirror that allows staff to see visitors. A tone rings when people enter the space. On low-sensory and voice-off Thursdays, a staff member will be available but will not greet you, allowing you to move at your own pace. If you are non-visual, call out for help anytime. If you are sighted, please silently approach a staff member. We have hard-of-hearing staff on site, so a visual wave may be required to get their attention.

[Page turning]

Chapter 2: grunt gallery’s welcome station

As you enter the gallery, immediately to the right on the west wall is a sanitization and welcome station. The station is white with black labels in English, high-contrast icons, and some braille labels. There are three open shelves, including the top surface and two pull-out shelves below, and two closed drawers with d-hook handles.

On top of the welcome station is our gallery spider plant, Comos, who is watered on Wednesdays. The top surface holds a leather-bound guestbook with a black pen, a bottle of hand sanitizer, and a box of masks with tongs. A digital tablet allows you to browse the exhibition page on our grunt.ca website or access our Big Cartel eCommerce store.

On the first pull-out shelf, on the left, is the exhibition binder with large print information about the space, the show, the artist, a transcript of this tour, and the exhibition map. On the right are a series of tactile objects. The objects on display in this exhibition are not to be handled. Our tactile objects are creative access tools designed to create a point of entry for non-visual, Blind, or partially sighted guests who may wish to experience the work through touch or by bringing the objects close. However, tactile objects are also sensory objects that can be used by sighted folks who wish to feel a connection to the work and those who enjoy or are supported by having objects in their hands to touch. 

Our tactile objects include:

• Four 2D tactile illustrations of the costume masks hanging on the clothing racks and featured in the exhibition video.
  
• A 2D tactile illustration of the large wall mural. The mural itself can also be touched to feel the wheat paste application.
  
• Latex and leather sample material swatches used in the construction of the costumes.
• A bronzed body part. A cast of the artist’s anus is available as a tactile object. It is one of the objects installed on the wall and featured in the video.
  
• Kautuka thread, smoky red and turmeric yellow coloured thread used to wrap the hangers in the show.

These tactile objects are provided as a sensory point of entry into the works and are not necessarily representative of the work or equivalent to experiencing the works through explorative touch. We do not present these objects assuming that you have never had access to bronze, thread, or latex toys, but we are also not assuming that you have had these experiences. Smell them, hold them, observe them. 

On the second pull-out shelf, to the left, are laminated maps of the space. Also within these shelves are two tactile maps. A tactile dollhouse map of the gallery, and a flat 2D tactile map of the spaces past the gallery box. Use the dollhouse and 2D tactile maps to follow along with the creative access tour while in gallery. Works are indicated by unique shapes glued to the ground or wall of the dollhouse map with pauses and descriptions with braille markers A through G.

To the right of the maps are two Yoto audio players with large, friendly buttons. These players contain this tour and audio of any text within the binder. There is also a scannable, laminated QR code that links to this audio tour. On Thursdays, the Yoto players are moved to their carrying cases for use with headphones.

Below these are the two closed drawers. The first contains carrying cases with straps for headphones and the Yoto audio devices, allowing hands-free use. There are also a set of stim toys you are welcome to carry and handle as you move through the space. 

The lowest drawer contains earmuffs for large and small bodies, specifically for those with noise sensitivities.

That concludes the description and tour of the welcome station. In the next chapter, I will tell you about our washrooms and care stations. If you’d prefer to continue with the exhibition tour, skip to Chapter Four.

[Page turning]

Chapter 3: The Facility and Amenities

If you need to use the washroom, it’s at the far end of our space. Exit the gallery through the doorway and continue following the west wall (to your right when you entered). Pass by the media lab, and when you reach the back wall, take a left and walk through the small kitchenette to our single-room, gender-neutral washroom.

An automated door button to the right holds the washroom door open for 14 seconds. Inside, to the left of the door, is the lock button which creates a visual indicator that the washroom is in use. To exit, you can open the door manually or hover your hand over a button above the sink, below the mirror.

Near the exit button is a vertical cubby stack of supplies. Please help yourself to items like hair ties, disposable floss, sanitary napkins, and condoms. This is part of our C-Care program, Community Care for Artist-Run Events.

Speaking of C-Care, we have a tea station in our media lab to the right of the media installation. If you need some energy, you can help yourself to a drink or a puréed fruit snack. This offering may occasionally be put away for the current show, but you can always ask our team for a drink or snack.

Also here is a colouring station for people of all ages. Take a pause and a break here before returning to the gallery and continuing the tour. We now arrive at Chapter Four, where I will begin the exhibition tour next to the welcome station, as if I had just entered the gallery and stepped right to sanitize my hands and grab a map.

[Page turning]

Chapter 4: The Exhibition Tour

If you’re using the tactile maps, we are at location A on the dollhouse near the front of the gallery. The front of the gallery is marked on the bottom of the dollhouse and is a wall of cutouts to represent the many windows.

On the wall above the welcome station, the didactic text has been hand-lettered in gold paint. It reads: Shrines and Rituals, Arjun Lal. Curated by Vance Wright. June 18 – August 1, 2026.

When Arjun walked me through the gallery, they shared:

“This is my solo exhibit, Shrines and Rituals, and for this exhibit I was interested in looking at Indian temple esthetic and iconography, and looking at really old traditional stories, and religion, and all this iconography from my parents’ heritage, and reimagining it through my own positionality, which I feel is very like queer, diasporic, and I guess, like, I was really interested in re-imagining these really traditional stories, but through my own body and asserting cultural shifts that happen, with diaspora, like [when] people move, they’re in different environments, things change. Shrines and Rituals feels almost like a documentation of my own existence as this Indian body on Turtle Island in the colonial structure, but also within my time and my experience.”

The gallery walls are painted a neutral white, and the baseboard trim throughout has been painted a high-contrast neutral grey. The exhibition comprises 8 works: suspended wall-mounted sculptures along the west wall, three freestanding clothing racks positioned centrally in the gallery, and a large-scale wheat-paste mural on the west wall. 

The Media Lab, accessible through the south end of the gallery, contains a video work that is part of the exhibition and has its own fully audio-described track. The west wall that leads into the media lab has a protruding sculpture at hip height and a hanger that hangs parallel to the wall. The path is cane detectable, but take care if using the wall to navigate through. If you need assistance moving through the space or viewing any of the works, call out to the staff members on site, or you can call the team here before you arrive.

The gallery’s front window shades are raised during exhibition hours to allow full natural light into the space. The light plays off the gold lettering of the wall text in a way that can catch your eye from across the room. The shades are drawn overnight — not to conceal the show, but to protect the latex and rubber materials of the costumes from direct morning sunlight, which can cause deterioration.

The laminated and tactile maps, available at the welcome station, list the works in the following order:

1. Bronze Casts
2. Nandi reclined in a field
3. Mango
4. Alien
5. Maa Kali
6. Nandi
7. Ganesh
8. Shrines and Rituals

This is the order we will follow, describing the works on the west wall first and then the clothing racks in the centre before ending the tour in the media lab with the video. As a reminder, when I physically move, you will hear the following sound:

[Cello]

Bronze Casts (location B)

If you’re using the dollhouse tactile map, we are moving from the welcome station (A) to location (B) along the west wall or your right as you enter.

Mounted along the west wall are two suspended, sculptural elements. Both hang from thin metal rods that project perpendicularly from the wall — the kind of slim, horizontal rod you might recognize from a clothing store display — positioned at just below doorway height.

The first is a coat hanger suspended from one of these rods. The hanger has been entirely wrapped in a kautuka thread that combines a smoked, paprika red with a turmeric yellow. 

“This thread has been in my life since forever. There are a lot of ceremonies where I mean, I didn’t really love to participate in them, but I would sometimes, especially when I was younger, and I would get this thread tied around my wrist at a special function or something, and I was looking it up recently, and it’s almost like a talisman, or what’s the word? An amulet. It’s a protection. It’s a blessing.”

The wrapping covers the hanger completely, including the hook at the top. From the centre of the hanger, a single strand of the same thread hangs downward, and from this thread are suspended four bronze cast body parts, arranged in the suggestion of a face. Two nipple casts — each including the areola — serve as the eyes. A nose cast is positioned below them. And finally, an anus cast forms the mouth: it has a naturally oval outline, and where the cast dimples inward toward the cavity, it takes on a resemblance to lips. Together, the four pieces create a quiet, composed face assembled from intimate parts of the body. Arjun shared that this is a self-portrait; an expression of Arjun’s body as a sacred timeless thing. 

The metal has a warm gold tone and a matte to lightly polished finish. One of these objects is available in the tactile objects for you to touch and explore!

The second sculptural element is mounted on a similar rod, positioned lower — at approximately crotch or belly button height. This is a cast of a foreskin, attached directly to the end of the rod so that it protrudes outward from the wall, with a clear phallic implication. Behind it, where the piece meets the rod, a double strand of the red and yellow thread loops and trails.

Arjun shares: 

“While I was doing this research trip in India, I was thinking also about how do I, how do I frame or present all of these wearable pieces, do I put them on a wall, do I put them in a box with glass behind it? 

I didn’t really know, but I wanted it to be a bit different, and so I was going to a lot of temples. I went to so many temples, and and then something that I think almost every temple had, was some kind of relic, and although I do consider, like, these are my, these wearable pieces are my… they’re wearable pieces, but I do also feel like, like, maybe not all, but some are, I kind of consider these to be a bit also like relics.

But through my temple experiences, I saw a lot of bronze. I saw a lot of stone. These pieces that can last forever, and people would line up on these huge queues to just have a moment in front of a relic that they could maybe touch for a blessing or even just witness and shower it with an offering of maybe it’s a basket of sacred objects or something, like an apple [or] like just some kind of offering. And so, I was thinking I’d like to have some bronze in this show. Something that’s timeless. Something that does reference the history and the ancient feeling of a temple, and so I casted my body. I casted my both of my nipples, my nose, anus, and foreskin, and these are all just really sensitive spaces on my body. And I’m interested in sensation. A lot.”

[Cello]

Nandi reclined in a field (location C)

If you’re using the tactile map, we are staying at location B but turning to face location C on the other side of gallery; the east wall, or left of where you came in.

This big work is what most visitors notice first when they walk in.

A large-scale wheat-paste photograph takes up seven eighths of the south wall, spanning the full twelve-foot height of the gallery and beginning roughly a foot from the floor. It was applied by hand, using wheat paste, placed panel by panel — 112 panels in total — and from across the gallery it reads as a seamless image. Up close, small imperfections in the seams become visible, a record of the hand that placed each piece. 

The image shows Arjun wearing the Cow Nandi costume, reclining in a field of grass dotted with bright, high-contrast dandelions. 

The Cow Nandi costume has an inflatable white latex headpiece shaped like a marshmallow heart with a smooth cloud-like silhouette. The head is significantly larger than the wearer’s head and shoulders and extends outward beyond their body. Two drooping ears project from either side and two horns rise from the forehead. The horns are black at the base and transition to a pale gold toward their pointed tips.

Two tall, oval openings reveal the wearer’s eyes as well as parts of their forehead and hairline. A horizontal oval opening at the centre of the muzzle exposes their mouth. The muzzle area is a natural latex colour. Arjun described this colour as similar to kaju badam kulfi – a frozen dairy dessert with cashews and almonds – a milky colour with a light amber hue that contrasts with the white surface of the headpiece.

The bodysuit is a sleeveless, one-piece garment resembling an infant’s onesie. The arms and legs remain bare. At the centre of the abdomen is a raised inflatable form from which a single oversized pink udder protrudes forward.

Arjun shares:

“Nandi is very sweet. In India, cows are just so sacred, and in that land, and in stories. So I wanted to become one, so I made this mask and this big body suit with a big udder. Initially I thought I was going to have four teets, and I don’t even know if it would have worked out because one teet is perfect, and I like it. I like how I feel in it and I’m happy I made that decision.”

Arjun’s brown skin is in vivid contrast against the greens and yellows of the field, and against the white latex of the costume. The inflated udder of the costume is prominent at the centre of the image, which Cow Nandi holds in one hand. Arjun’s tongue hangs out from the translucent face panel, extended in a gesture that reads like Cow Nandi panting. 

Arjun continues:

“This photo was taken on Citadel Hill in Halifax, which is this problematic hill. It has a weird history that’s like… it wasn’t really always a hill, it was built through colonial oppression. And [it’s been there] since as long as I’ve been alive, and probably before that. It’s also been a site after dark for prostitution and cruising, so that’s where this site is, and I don’t know… It felt good to be there as a way to just speak with tradition.”

[Cello]

Central Gallery: Three Clothing Racks (Locations D, E, F)

If you’re using the tactile map, we are now moving to locations D, E, and F — the three freestanding silver metal clothing racks positioned centrally in the gallery, set perpendicularly to the wheat-pasted mural. The two outer racks are spaced to align with the edges of the mural image, and the central rack is positioned at its midpoint, creating a balanced arrangement.

I’ll describe each rack in turn, moving from the one closest to the entrance — the north side of the gallery and end at the one nearest the south wall.

Please don’t touch the costumes on the racks, but Arjun has left swatches of latex rubber and leather used in their costumes for you to touch and explore. 

Rack 1 — Mango (Location D)

The first rack, closest to the entrance, is slightly lower than the other two. Its crossbar sits at approximately face height — around nose level for me. On this rack hangs the deflated Mango costume, draped across two hangers. The hooks of both hangers have been wrapped in the same red and yellow thread used throughout the show. The tops of the wooden hangers have been painted a bronzy gold. Because the Mango costume is very large, it has been folded and draped through both hangers — gathered over one, drooping down between them, then tucked up and over the second. In this deflated, folded state it reads more as a large drop cloth or bedsheet hung to dry than as its intended form. 

The costume is a human-sized inflatable latex form with an elongated oval body and pointed top. The shape completely encloses the wearer, obscuring the body beneath. 

The front half of the form is bright yellow. Toward the pointed upper tip, the surface divides into green and red sections. These colours continue around the back of the form, where approximately half the surface is green and half is red.

A heavy-duty, industrial, airtight black zipper emerges from the bottom centre and extends upward several inches. Although the latex is opaque, when worn, the shape of the body inside occasionally becomes visible when the material stretches or the body presses outward against the inflatable surface. When walking me through the tour, Arjun mentioned that the Mango has two valves — one accessible from outside and one from inside — beyond the main zipper. When worn, the zipper is operated from the outside by a trusted person.

“I love mangoes. In Indian culture, in India, people love mangoes. It’s like, I want to say the equivalent of like a hot dog in America. Mangoes are sacred and delicious, and people make curries and pickles and juice and ice cream and everything with mango. And, so, yeah, I feel like the mango is a big part of my cultural heritage, and it comes into play in religious iconography as well, I think, through the form of Paisley, and so I was interested in going back to role play…

We can be anything. We don’t have to be cops and robbers, and we don’t have to be butchers, or I don’t know, like Nazis. 

We don’t have to be these things. We can be an orange, we can be a berry, we can be a mango, we can be a flower, and role play? It’s already silly, like, oh, I’m role playing as your like professor. It’s a game, and in those games, the sky is the limit. We don’t have to be limited to just what’s already been done. We can make our own rules, and in this piece I made this mango…”

[Cello]

Rack 2 — Kali Maa, and Alien (Location E)

The middle rack is taller than the first, with its crossbar at approximately my eye level. It holds four costume pieces, including the ball gag displayed draped over the top end of the rack facing the west wall. I’ll move across the rack from left to right — that is, from the side nearest to the mural moving inward towards the Bronzed Casts.

To the far left of this rack is the Alien costume. Let me first describe what the full costume looks like when worn.

The suit consists of an inflatable mask and a sleeveless kurta.

The mask is an elongated, inflated oval form in pale teal – similar to an upside-down raindrop. It rises approximately three times the height of the wearer’s face, with most of its volume extending above the head. The lower front surface is recessed to create a fitted face opening with holes around the eyes and mouth.

Large eye openings reveal the wearer’s eyes and portions of the eyebrows. A vertical seam or zipper runs between the eyes toward a small mouth opening. When Arjun wears it, their beard is visible through the lower opening, while the rest of their face is enclosed by the tight-fitting latex.

The kurta is sleeveless and falls to approximately knee height. It is made of opaque pearlescent latex in a pale cream colour.

In the gallery, the kurta hangs from a standard dress hanger, painted the same bronzy gold as the others, with thread wrapped protectively around the shoulder areas rather than the hook. The head mask is displayed separately on a trouser press, but here it is hung upside down: because the mask is an elongated oval form that is longest above the face, it is clipped at the neck opening — the shortest end — so that the long inflated forehead section falls away below, while the face, inverted, appears at the top. The effect is something between a mask and a garment in itself. A pump valve is visible on the mask — a roughly three-centimetre silver valve ending in a black cap, similar to a bicycle pump valve. 

Arjun shares:

“I’ve always kind of felt like an alien, and I thought it would be like, I don’t know, it seemed like a really natural thing. It didn’t seem like a hard project, and I was just kind of curious about embodying, like visually, adding these typical pop culture alien references, like a big like oval head, and some kind of like strange dress, like similar to like Signs or Mars Attacks!, or like an alien emoji or sticker. 

While I was in France, I would wear the alien and go around this castle I was staying in, and just kind of be myself, and taste foods… There was so much cheese to taste, and urchins, and I was thinking about my parents when they came to Canada, and I wondered what it was like for them to be so alien in this place, and although that’s my parents’ story, it’s not really my story, I feel alien in a different way, but I was curious about what it’s like to go somewhere else, and just maybe I didn’t know if I would feel like I fit in, or if I belonged or if people would be nice to me or what the food is. 

I’m not very good at French. I don’t know the language really at all. So, the piece kind of started off there as a reference of, or exploration of, like immigration, or like, an immigrant alien experience, but also I feel like within mythology, and like speculation of gods and higher power, and in a lot of religious stories across the world, the alien is also this like higher power, or this outside source of information and technology, and so I sometimes wonder, in these stories of like Hindu gods, I wonder…

I saw this episode of Ancient Aliens, and that kind of persuaded me as well, but I’m not really that religious, but I do feel spiritual, and I do feel like there’s something that we just… there are things we don’t know, and but when I think about these religious stories across the world, I feel like I can really believe in an alien[s].”

Moving right, the next piece is the Maa Kali Zentai mask, hung from a trouser press or pant press hanger. The two metal clips of the hanger are locked in position — they cannot slide — because the crossbar has been wrapped in the red and yellow thread. A small rectangle of leather is placed at each clip point for additional protection. 

The full Maa Kali costume consists of a hood, vest, and pants, but for this exhibition, Arjun has only displayed the headwear.

The hood itself is made of black leather, specifically lambskin, with seams highlighted in gold thread. The hood is made of black material and covers the entire head. Two gold vertical stripes run down the centre of the face from forehead to mouth. Around the eye openings, a white horizontal paisley form is decorated with glass beads and more of the golden thread — including columns of large pearls descending from the eye areas. A coppery-orange cord is threaded through corset-style eyelets at the back of the mask. 

The ball gag rests over the wrapped crossbar at the top of the rack on the right. The strap that would go around the back of the head is a black leather band, and on each side of the strap is beadwork in pearly white, fruit-rind orange, and that same smoky red seen throughout the show. The beadwork includes columns of stacked beads that project perpendicularly from the strap’s surface, giving it a jewelled, spiky texture. Where the ball gag itself sits is not a single sphere but a column and series of graduated balls — a dildo ball gag — in the muted tone of red rubber.

“I’ve got these two leather pieces, one is adorned with this gold thread that’s really traditional in Indian embroidery, along with some glass beads, gold and orange glass beads, and these pearls, and in this piece, // I wanted to use that paisley motif, and then also bring in these materials and embroidery esthetics that I’ve seen on a sari or some kind of like wedding dress. 

Together they form this reference of a character named Kali Mata, who is this quite intimidating goddess and when I was in India last summer, I went to a few temples that were devoted to her. This character has their own role play. They’re present in so many other forms, and this was just one of them, but I remember seeing these really old, like dark stone, polished stone relics with this one single eye painted on a forehead of like a big stone, and depictions of this goddess often have this like striking long tongue, this big red tongue. I just thought, how can I reimagine this or bring this into the context of role play? I just thought this tongue is so significant [and I] just thought, how can I wear this tongue? So I made this silicone, this kind of bulbous tongue, almost tongue dildo piece.

The leather on both of the mask and this mouth piece is made with lamb skin and and on [the] mouthpiece it’s also adorned with these small pearls and gold, yellow, red beads, and the buckle came from a ball gag I bought from Amazon.

Initially I was kind of concerned about the metals not matching, but I feel like I just started to lean into mixed metals and I wanted it to feel like a temple in some way, in a contemporary way. Outside and inside temples as well, especially outside, there are these huge markets, with almost like souvenirs, or pieces to build a shrine. People collect photos and little trinkets, and I think bring them into their homes to build their own shrines for or add a piece to their pre-existing shrine, but in those spaces there’s so much colour and visual stimulation. There’s golds and silvers and beads and bronze and brass and pigments and different strings and sequins and shells. Just so much stimulation, and at first I wanted everything to be the same, but then I thought, if I’m thinking about a temple and temple esthetic, [matching] wasn’t so important.”

[Cello]

Rack 3 — Cow Nandi and Elephant Ganesh (Location F)

The third and final rack, closest to the south wall, holds two pieces of the Cow Nandi costume and the Elephant Ganesh head.

On the left side of the rack — closest to the mural — hangs the Cow Nandi bodysuit. It is partially inflated, so the udder at the centre retains some dimension and the single nipple protrudes slightly. The suit is draped over the hanger at the shoulder areas, as the Alien dress was on the previous rack. The inflation valve is visible from the side of the udder. To the right of the bodysuit, on a trouser press, hangs the deflated Cow Nandi head. Even deflated, it is recognizable: the two horns fall downward toward the ground, and the two ears extend to the sides. 

On the far right of this rack is the elephant Ganesh mask. Let me first describe the mask in it’s fully inflated glory before I tell you about how it is installed in the gallery.

The costume includes an inflatable latex headpiece shaped like an elephant’s head. The mask is bright pink and highly reflective. Its wide ears extend outward in the same plane as the face, creating a broad, flattened silhouette.

Two small circular openings reveal the wearer’s eyes. Between them, an inflated trunk projects forward from the face before curving sharply downward and inward at its tip. The head and trunk are formed as a single continuous inflatable shape.

In its mostly deflated state, here in the gallery, the trunk falls downward and curls up at the tip in a J shape, while the partially inflated sides of the head extend outward, creating three rounded, drooping forms. The valve on this piece has been applied with a visible black circle on the hot pink rubber, giving it both an integrated and obviously intentional appearance. A PVC drinking tube — part of the mask itself — dangles down between these three sections toward the ground. 

Arjun shares: 

“I was in a colonial museum in London. I go to these Indian exhibitions, it’s so frozen. Well, it’s a few things, it’s frozen in time, it’s showing culture as an artifact, and that’s even in contemporary situations like places like the ROM in Toronto, who have an active like program for Indian artists working with textiles and they have got this big department…but it also still feels quite, I don’t know, maybe it’s too straight or too conservative, or I think maybe a bit too traditional, and I just feel like it’s slowing down the evolution of more contemporary identity and culture, but also, there’s Ganesh. These old statues that were like relics, like really old ancient pieces that have been displaced and put in big museums around the world. It’s this fetish piece, like a cultural fetish, that people can go around and like ogle, but it comes from such an old place and an old home, so it’s a bit confusing. It’s in relation to when India was colonized. A lot of things were taken and placed around the world…

I was really thinking about creating a dialog with this cultural fetishization of Ganesh, but wearing this latex inflatable piece that’s quite kinky. It has this long breathing tube that’s also a feeding tube, and it’s on my body, that’s either like nude or almost nude, and with this documentation, I feel like it is something that I consider to be a relic, or like a quite spiritually charged piece, but also it’s a contrast between taking something and turning it into a fetish object, opposed to making something with the intention of it being a fetish object”.

[Cello]

Shrines and Rituals, video (location G)

Before leaving the main gallery, I spy some wall text near the Media Lab entrance. It is lettered in the same gold and yellow watercolour as the exhibition title, and reads: Exhibition continues.

In the Media Lab, you are welcome to sit, pour yourself a cup of tea. Arjun recommends a cup of Bengal Spice. Enjoy a cup and  take in the video work, which plays continuously. A fully audio-described version of the video, narrated by the artist and co-written by Arjun and me, is available on the Yoto audio player or plays alongside the video in gallery on Fridays. The transcript is also available in text in the exhibition binder.

If you’d prefer to experience the film in real time and through the Audio Described script, skip ahead to the last part of this tour for the conclusion, and then visit the media lab or the audio description on the Yoto player. The following is a summary of the 8-minute film. 

A silent video performance in which a single performer embodies four characters: Cow Nandi, Elephant Ganesh, Maa Kali, and an Alien. Appearing one at a time against a black background, the characters engage in a surreal game using bronze body parts and pieces of jewelry as tokens.

The film begins with each character introducing a different bronzed body part: a nose, a pair of nipples, and a foreskin. Guided by the Alien, the objects are rolled and placed onto a moon-like playing field scattered with bangles. As the game unfolds, Cow Nandi’s prized milk becomes the stake of an exchange. After losing, the cow mourns the gradual deflation of its oversized udder while Elephant Ganesh celebrates and drinks the milk through a tube extending from beneath the elephant’s trunk.

In the second half of the film, an additional bronze objects, an anus, is added to the playing field and rearranged into the suggestion of a human face. Maa Kali contemplates the assembled objects and imagines a wish.

The video concludes with the appearance of a giant inflatable mango. Occupying the frame alone against the black background, the brightly coloured form sways, twists, and dances. The hidden performer inside presses against the latex surface, causing the fruit to stretch, bulge, and transform shape before gradually settling into stillness and fading to black.

[Cello]

With that, we conclude the described tour of Shrines and Rituals. Later during the exhibition’s run, we will have a publication available, along with an alternative text version in plain text which will be available on the grunt gallery website and the exhibition’s audio players in gallery.

Thank you so much for joining me on this creative access audio tour! 

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this experience and how we can improve it. If you carried any tactile object(s) during the tour, please return it to the welcome station! We acknowledge that we cannot be everything to everyone, and respect that our creative access explorations may not serve your needs. You can reach us at access@grunt.ca or chat with any of the staff on site with any feedback you have the capacity to provide.

Thank you again.

Curatorial Introduction by Vance Wright

Three metal rolling clothing racks sit in the gallery space, lined parallel to one another. Hanging from their rungs are seven wearable art pieces. Composed of latex, leather, rubber, and silicone, these wearables are kinkwear made by hand by Arjun Lal. On the rack closest to the entryway is a yellowy orange latex suit draped over two hangers, called Mango, 2026. On the middle rack, three wearables rest; Alien, 2026, is a latex and rubber outfit consisting of a white frock or apron, with a large slate grey oval inflatable mask. Next to this is Kali Mata, 2026, a black leather mask with ornate zari embroidery, complete with pearls and gold thread around the eye holes. Next to this mask, considered as part of the same work, is a silicone ball gag, somewhere between Kali’s tongue and anal beads. Beadwork protrudes from the leather headstrap. On the last rack rest the final two wearable works, Nandi, 2026, and Ganesh, 2026. Nandi consists of a latex, metal and rubber cow suit with a large singular udder and inflatable mask with large golden horns and stylized ears, Ganesh is a bright pink latex, PVC, metal and rubber elephant mask, with eyeholes, a large trunk, and a longer thinner clear trunk. All of the hangers have been wrapped in kautuka thread, a protective textile, along with the rack where the Kali Mata ball gag sits without a hanger. 

On the eastern wall is a large wheatpasted photograph of Arjun wearing Nandi, reclined in a field like a grecian painting while holding a dandelion. The photo cannot be viewed without the racks obstructing it, reminding us that these wearable pieces are in regular use. Opposite Nandi reclined in a field, 2026, are Bronze Casts, 2026, which consist of various cast forms of Arjun’s body, including the left and right nipples, a nose, anus and foreskin, which are arranged into a semblance of a human face. In the media lab, a short film captures the activation of all these works together. In this filmwork, Arjun plays each of the three gods, Ganesh, Kali, and Nandi, while The Alien presides over the dice game they play with the bronze casts.

As a person who grew up disconnected from their culture, Arjun’s practice made a large impact on my own artistic practice and thinking on relating to the erotic and kink through a decolonial lens. Through filmwork, photography, and textiles, Arjun creates work that is a germinating point for conceiving of kink outside the White Gays/Gaze–playful, sexy, kinky images consist of not only brown and hairy bodies, but also merge with explicit cultural iconography. In their film work, the gods play with Arjun’s cast body parts, as if the gods themselves are in a state of play while we are, and ball gags, leather masks, and kink wear are unapologetically linked to the sacred. As an Indigenous queer person living in these territories, I have tried to bridge this gap between culture and kink, that is both respectful but also honest. During install, I was privileged to hear our Installation and Access Manager, Kay Slater, talk with Arjun about their practice, mainly about the role of permission in their work. This work is both a spectacle but also incredibly vulnerable–to give yourself permission to engage in play like this, to become and explore identities and roles unfamiliar, to be unrestrained is vulnerable. To give yourself permission to blur lines between culture and kink for your own satisfaction is vulnerable.

It’s no secret that grunt gallery has a long standing history of working with queer artists and artists who are people of colour. In connection to our history of supporting performance art, Arjun’s show makes a lot of sense to come here. During a time when white supremacy and fascism is on the rise, it feels particularly important to highlight brown queer artists and bodies, and the spellbinding art they create, and maybe what we need at this time is to playfully explore the fullness of other roles we can be.