Asia TOPA: Bread, Circuses and Home
Consume the sights, tastes and sounds of Punjab in this vibrant installation and performance series about migration and resilience by artists Thukral and Tagra.
Bread, Circuses and Home is a free public installation and mini-festival by innovative Delhi-based artist duo Jiten Thukral (Jalandhar, Punjab) and Sumir Tagra (New Delhi).
Inspired by the artist’s research in Melbourne and their ongoing work with migrant communities, this work takes its cue from the urgent agricultural crisis faced by Punjabi farmers in India. Year on year, generational divisions of land, climate change, politics and inadequate laws have severely affected Pubjabi farmers’ livelihoods, forcing many to relocate their lives, including to Australia.
Bread, Circuses and Home is a collaboration with Melbourne’s diverse Punjabi communities and a celebration of the unique ways that cultures adapt, survive and transform in the wake of international migration.
Drawing inspiration from the act of kushti (a form of traditional Indian wrestling) and the wrestling ground Akhara, Bread, Circuses and Home is a seven-day-long, vibrant display of Punjabi folk music, radio programming and interactive game plays. Gather with the Punjabi community to learn, share meals, reflect and celebrate.
The full performance program will be announced soon – watch this space!
About the artists
Thukral and Tagra are a Delhi-based artist duo comprising Jiten Thukral (b. 1976, Jalandhar, Punjab) and Sumir Tagra (b. 1979, New Delhi).
Driven by the artistic methodologies of painting, gaming, archiving and publishing, their multifaceted studio practice reflects the scope of engagement in the cultural and political landscape of India and the world. While their early career work dealt with the intricacies of consumer culture globally, their recent interest in ecology and climate change is a revisiting of their family histories of migration and farming in the Indian state of Punjab.
Through and beyond their studio practice, Thukral & Tagra create new formats of public engagement and attempt to expand the threshold of what art can do. These also include the non-profit Foundation that addresses ongoing social issues through education and art, their collaborative learning lab Pollinator that fosters cross-pollinations across creative fields, and the new publishing and distribution platform andArchive that reconfigures the potential of the print and the archive.
Thukral & Tagra’s immersive and multi-modal sensory installations offer seamless accessibility to audiences from varied backgrounds and approaches, breaking through the spectatorial protocols of “high art.”
Bread, Circuses and Home was commissioned by Fed Square and Asia TOPA, Arts Centre Melbourne with funding support from the Centre for Australia-India Relations.
Asia TOPA is a joint initiative of the Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne, is supported by the Australian and Victorian Governments through Creative Victoria, Playking Foundation and the Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.
Check out the full program of free live music, outdoor cinema and community events on as part of Open Air in the Square.
