The „Many Kilometres, Several Words” exhibition contains Amol K Patil’s early works showing the development of his unique artistic language. Patil derived much of his inspiration at the time from his father Kishan, an exceptional figure, a travelling playwright, and his grandfather Gunij, who was an interpreter. Originally from a Dalit community, Gunij and Kishan, each in his own fashion, put up resistance to injustice and exclusion. Among the items Amol found after his father’s premature death were a dictaphone with recorded statements of hired workers, draft scripts, and Gunij’s texts.
Powada, a tradition still cherished in India, involves performing rap-like storytelling songs filled with anger against the caste system and references to B. R. Ambedkar, the father of the Indian constitution and a leading thinker of Dalits. Their dynamics and ideological commitment provided a starting point for Amol K Patil to utilise his dual heritage: private and public. The artist interprets his father’s archive and explores his aesthetic of discord on his terms – through micro-stories and personal gestures.
The exhibition title comes from one of Amol K Patil’s works which addresses the problem of migration and fragmentary language – fractured, torn and dispersed words. It speaks of physical separation and the kilometres that symbolically separate generations, social classes and ways of relating stories.
For Patil, the caste system is more than merely a historical matter, it is a recurrent form of violence that shapes individual experience and collective memory. His works attempt to reclaim the voice of the excluded and resist the violence. The artist uncovers the systemic workings of oppression: through institutions, through language, memory, muteness and the body.

Amol K Patil (b. 1987, Bombay, India) is an Indian visual artist whose practice focuses on themes of social exclusion, memory, and Dalit heritage. Drawing from his family history— including the work of his father, a playwright—and his experience growing up in a workingclass neighbourhood of Bombay, he creates works that combine drawing, installation, video, and sound. His poetic and political narratives, rooted in local context, carry universal resonance. He has exhibited his work at documenta 15 (Kassel, 2022), the Yokohama Triennale (2020), The Showroom (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2015), as well as at biennales in Pune and Dakar (2016).

Around the exhibition MANY KILOMETERS, SEVERAL WORDS*:

May 23, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Author-curator guided tour of the exhibition in English (with whispered translation into Polish and Spanish)
BGSW / Baszta, Słupsk

June 3, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Curator-guided tour of the exhibition in Polish / Agnieszka Kilian
BGSW / Baszta, Słupsk

June 21-22, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Anti-racism workshops “Everyday without prejudice: how to recognize and respond to racism”
Led by: Oliwia Oladigbolu – Family Voices Multiethnic Families Association BGSW / ul. Partyzantów 31a, Słupsk
Registration: [email protected] (515 089 698)
Participation is free. Registration required

June 27, 2025 at 6:00 PM
“Mumbai? Bombay? Contexts of contemporary India”.
Meeting with Dr. Anna Romanowicz Department of Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Jagiellonian University in Krakow
BGSW / ul. Partyzantów 31a, Słupsk

July 17, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Film screening preceded by a tour guide of the exhibition. Cinema as a form of Dalit resistance.
BGSW / Baszta, continuation in BGSW, ul. Partyzantów 31a, Słupsk

July 26, 2025 at 6:00 PM
POWADA Party
BGSW / ul. Partyzantów 31a, Słupsk (courtyard)

August 16, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Exhibition finissage – BGSW / Baszta, Słupsk
POWADA Party – BGSW / ul. Partyzantów 31a, Słupsk (courtyard)

*free entrance