Sayan Chanda: How Many Fires, How Many Suns, How Many Dawns?

Kolkata-born artist Sayan Chanda re-envisions devotional objects, folk gods and mythic stories as hybrid forms shaped by identity and critical approaches to colonial histories. Working intuitively with fibre and clay, he uses processes such as weaving, stitching, quilting, dyeing and hand-building to create spaces where tales, figures and practices can be reimagined, rather than belonging to a single time, place or belief system.

How Many Fires, How Many Suns, How Many Dawns? is a major new commission that continues Chanda’s interest in female and lesser-known deities. These figures, whose presence has endured through communal rituals, often carried out in the home, have often been overlooked or altered through patriarchal retellings.

At the heart of the exhibition is the forest goddess Bonbibi, of the mangrove delta at the coastal border of India and Bangladesh known as the Sundurbans. Traditionally worshipped by both Muslim and Hindu communities as a protector, here Bonbibi does not belong to one faith or tradition. She appears as an expansive woven form, assembled from vintage Kantha quilts hand-stitched by women in their homes across the region and gathered by Chanda, the fabrics show signs of wear and use. For Chanda, Kantha carries traces of labour and survival, grounding Bonbibi in domestic gestures of care.

Around Bonbibi are woven textile figures that act as guardians and warnings, alongside a still body of water at the centre of the space offering glimpsed moments of mirrored reflection. Ceramic animals representing the fauna of the Sundarbans are shaped by hand and placed throughout the space, alongside sculptural forms that echo mangrove roots. Fired with a reflective metallic glaze, these figures take on an uncertain character, with some appearing partly human, suggesting connections between people, animals and the natural world.

The exhibition’s title comes from the Rig Veda, an ancient Sanskrit text that forms part of the oldest Hindu scriptures. It is commonly translated as: “How many fires are there, how many suns, how many dawns, how many waters? I address you, O ancestors, not in rivalry; I ask you, sages, in order to know the truth.” The invocation asks how many forms can exist at once. Through this work, Chanda invites visitors into a space that moves beyond fixed belief systems, where deities and histories exist in forms that remain open to change.

All works are courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary.