“Band Baja carries a history far beyond celebration. What began as a form of imperial ceremony was transformed over time, as music, martial rhythm and public procession became vehicles for national sentiment, mobilisation and resistance.”
- Adeela Suleman, 2026
Grosvenor Gallery, in collaboration with Canvas Gallery, Karachi, presents The Rising Crescendo of the Band Baja, an exhibition of new works by acclaimed Pakistani artist Adeela Suleman, on view from 14 October to 6 November 2026.
There will also be an Artist walkthrough on Saturday 17 October at 3 pm.
In this new body of work, Suleman turns to the spectacle of the South Asian band baja. Drummers, trumpeters and uniformed bandsmen emerge amid dense forests, flowers, foliage and wild animals, creating scenes that are celebratory, theatrical and dreamlike. Removed from the familiar setting of weddings and processions, the musicians inhabit richly imagined landscapes in which sound is suggested rather than heard.
The works draw on the layered histories of ceremonial bands, whose associations with military order and authority were transformed across South Asia through celebration, public spectacle and collective identity. These tensions between pageantry and power, beauty and disturbance, lie at the heart of Suleman’s practice.
Working across repoussé metalwork and textile, Suleman brings together ornament, craftsmanship and historical memory. In her copper and brass reliefs, the hardness and permanence of the materials are transformed into intricate surfaces of birds, flowers, foliage and figures, while the metals themselves recall the gleam of instruments and ceremonial insignia.
The exhibition also includes a major textile work that extends these themes through histories of empire and resistance, drawing connections between the independence movements of India and Ireland.
The Rising Crescendo of the Band Baja brings together celebration and uncertainty, ornament and violence, authority and resistance in a body of work that is at once visually seductive and quietly charged.