Vibha Galhotra was born in Kaithal in 1978, and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Government College of Arts in Chandigarh and a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan. Her sweeping artistic experimentation touches on photography, motion pictures, retrieved objects and performance objects, installations, and sculptures. Galhotra has participated in international events, and held solo shows both in her country and abroad. Her oeuvre and collaborations are widely documented in art literature. One of her milestone solo exhibitions was Metropia Project 88, Mumbai (2008). Among the group exhibitions, may we recall India Awakening Under the Banyan Tree, Essl Museum (2010); By George, Alliance Française, New Delhi (2009); India Xianzai, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai (2009). She was awarded a national scholarship for young artists by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India in 2001, and the Inlaks Foundation Fine Arts Award.

– title: Re-birth Day

– date: 2012

– medium: interactive art involving Vibha Galhotra and locals from San Giovanni Valdarno

– size: sculpture

– description: Vibha Galhotra took part in the first edition of the Contemporary Renaissance artist residency project housed at Casa Masaccio in partnership with MK Search Art in the framework of the Toscanaincontemporanea2011 projects sponsored by the Tuscan regional government. Re-birth Day was inspired by Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Terzo Paradiso and was conceived by the Indian artist during her residency period in Italy, involving the participation of locals from San Giovanni Valdarno. The sculpture was shaped like the symbol of Pistoletto’s Third Paradise and was completely covered with reflective aluminium foil with the aid of locals during a participatory art action. Due to its conceptual and compositional methodology characteristics, the work rightfully enters the Orbis Unum series, in which the artist aspired to create a borderless world grounded on utopian principles. The aim of this action was to foster the sense of union among people and hope for a new beginning in the wake of the Third Paradise, as intended by Pistoletto: “It is time to begin a third phase, in which humankind will reconcile with all natural and artificial elements, creating a new balance at every level of society: the Third Paradise”.