“The Scorpion Gesture” to be exhibited in Melbourne at MADA Gallery, August 1-12, 2026

Installation at MADA Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

MADA Gallery presents The Scorpion Gesture, a suite of five animated works by New York-based Chitra Ganesh, commissioned by the Rubin Museum in 2018, with its rich and vast collection of Himalayan Art as a jumping-off point, and created with deep research into Buddhist concepts, history, and belief systems.

Inspired by the figures of Padmasambhava, known as the Second Buddha, and Maitreya, the Future Buddha, these animations weave mythical iconography, queer and feminist history and contemporary politics. Historical touchstones and spiritual stories that have passed through generations are utilised as symbols and metaphors to create alternative worlds. In these short, dense loops, there is no end, no beginning – cycles of time bleed into each other -- this world merges with the one before and the one to come.

The title references a Buddhist mudra. As Ganesh notes,

"The mudra known as the scorpion gesture is said to have unlimited power and potential for transformation,” says Ganesh. “The potential for transformation, both physical and psychic, across pre-conceived boundaries of gender and political position, is a long-held inspiration for my work.”

Presented at MADA Galley as part of the ongoing curatorial project To Forever Ebb and Flow: Queer Time/Migrant Time (2024 – present) organised by Aziz Sohail.

The works were developed and animated by the STUDIO.