MaskiniTaal (2021) solo exhibition at Fotografiens Hus, Oslo. Documentation image by Tor Simen Ulstein
Dev Dhunsi is a Norwegian-Indian artist working at the intersection of photography, textile, installation, and critical myth-making. His hybrid practice expands the image into sculptural, sonic, and ecological space — often stretching photographs across fabric, submerging them in water, or setting them in motion to explore how histories are carried, concealed, and undone.
Raised between Trondheim and Punjab, Dhunsi’s work draws from personal archives, ancestral stories, and diasporic dislocations. He creates multi-sensory installations that reframe the image as a site of embodied knowledge — not simply to be seen, but to be felt, disturbed, or immersed in. Whether referencing queer South Asian mythologies or interrogating colonial land visions through blurred landscapes, his work resists singular authorship and linear time.
Dhunsi holds an MFA from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and a BFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. His work has been exhibited widely across Europe, including solo presentations at MELK (Oslo), CFF (Stockholm), and CHART (Copenhagen), and group exhibitions at Fotogalleriet(NO), Andrehn-Shiptjenko (SE), and Organ Vida Festival (HR). He is a recipient of the Nordic Photobook Award 2024 and was selected for the FUTURES Photography platform in 2023. His forthcoming photobook Mixed (SPBH Editions/Mack Books, 2026) continues his research into intergenerational inheritance and visual resistance.
Dhunsi lives and works between Oslo and Punjab. His practice is processual, collaborative, and rooted in the slow unfolding of images that refuse to settle.
Contact:
devdhunsi@gmail(.)com for prints, books, or other inquiries.
︎ @DEVDHUNSI
Photography is often mistaken for truth; a tool of seeing, fixing, possessing. My practice undermines this illusion. I approach the image as something porous, incomplete, and unstable. A photograph is never just what it shows, it is a negotiation of power, time, and memory.
Working across photography, textiles, sound, and water-based installations, I create expanded images that blur the lines between representation and rupture. By transferring photographs onto fabric, soaking them in water, layering them with myth, movement, or decay, I ask: what does it mean to see from within the image, not above it?
My work is shaped by a translocal inheritance: born in Norway to a Punjabi father, I move through histories that are both visible and submerged. I am drawn to the edges of archives — places where memory gets folded, blurred, or erased. Across my projects, I engage with queer ecologies, post-colonial landscapes, and intergenerational echoes, building visual ecosystems where things live, morph, and decompose.
Rather than offering fixed narratives, I stage images as encounters, sites of tension between past and present, diaspora and homeland, legibility and disappearance. In a time of algorithmic clarity and surveillance, I am committed to the image’s right to opacity, to friction, to becoming something else.
Working across photography, textiles, sound, and water-based installations, I create expanded images that blur the lines between representation and rupture. By transferring photographs onto fabric, soaking them in water, layering them with myth, movement, or decay, I ask: what does it mean to see from within the image, not above it?
My work is shaped by a translocal inheritance: born in Norway to a Punjabi father, I move through histories that are both visible and submerged. I am drawn to the edges of archives — places where memory gets folded, blurred, or erased. Across my projects, I engage with queer ecologies, post-colonial landscapes, and intergenerational echoes, building visual ecosystems where things live, morph, and decompose.
Rather than offering fixed narratives, I stage images as encounters, sites of tension between past and present, diaspora and homeland, legibility and disappearance. In a time of algorithmic clarity and surveillance, I am committed to the image’s right to opacity, to friction, to becoming something else.
Education:
Master of Fine art (MFA) - The Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm 2022-2024
Bachelor of Fine art (BFA) - Oslo National Academy of the Arts 2019-2022
Prosjektskolen Art School 2018-2019
Norwegian School of Photography 2016-2018
Selected solo exhibition:
2024 - Encircling Stories at Centrum For Fotografi (SE)
2024 – Tales They Don’t Tell You, Chart Art Fair (DK)
2023 - Encircling Stories at MELK, Oslo (NO)
2021 - “MaskiniTaal” @ Fotografiens hus (NO)
2020 - “Nawanzamania Phases” @ P Zero Projecthalle, KHIO (NO)
2019 - Nordic Light International Photography Festival (NO)
Selected group exhibitions:
2025 - Water Never Sleeps, Group exhibition, Sláturhúsið Art Center, Egilsstaðir (IS)
2025 - Bienal'25 Fotografia do Porto
2025 – Feel First, Think Later, group exhibition at Andrehn-Shiptjenko, Stockholm (SE)
2024 – Open up your eyes, Høyersten Contemporary, Bergen (NO)
2024 – Ties That Bind, Organ Vida, Museum of Contemporary Art, Organ Vida 13th Festival and Futures Photography, Zagreb, Croatia (HR)
2024 – Stream of:, Hvitsten Salong (NO)
2024 – Østlandsutstillingen 2024, at Kunstbanken senter for samtidskunst, Hamar & Vestfold Kunstsenter, Tønsberg (NO)
2023 - Vårutstillingen 2023 at Fotogalleriet, Oslo (NO)
2023 - Mejan Internationale: Home to Home, at Mint, Stockholm (SE)
2023 – «Indoctrination: Multivalent Gestures» group exhibition at Fotogalleriet, Oslo. Curated by Dahir Hussein (NO)
2022 – «Ringen bortom mattan» group exhibition at The sports Museum, curated by C-PRINT, Stockholm, Sweden (SE)
2022 – “In progress”, Landskrona Photo festival, Sweden curated by Atla Platform (DK/SE)
2022 - Illusive Illusions, Group exhibition at MELK, Oslo curated by Christian Tunge (NO)
2022 - BA-degree show, KHIO & Kunstnernes hus (NO)
2021 – “Dette året”, Fotografihuset og Preus Museum, kuratert av Sofie Amalie Klougart og Christian Belgaux (NO)
2021 - "Light of my life" at DOPSGATE4 gallery, Oslo, Norway, curated by Noah Hunter Love (NO)
2020 - Blue Chip Baby - DuckertDetroit collaboration, Babel visningsrom for Kunst, Trondheim (NO)
2019 - Trondheim Dokumentarfestival, Exhibition and artist talk (NO)
2019 - “Portrait now!”, Nationalhistoriske Museum Fredriksborg Castle (DK)
2019 - Palettes, Visitors Travel, curated by Ellinor Aurora Aasgaard and Sam Lubicz, FeldFünf, Berlin, Germany (DR)
2018 - "Rakavan" Encontros da imagem int. photo and visual art festival (PT)
2018 - "Rakavan" at Helsinki Photo Festival (FI)
2018 - Graduation exhibition Norwegian School of Photography (NO)
Residency/Participations:
Plat(t)form 2023, portfolio and talent gathering at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
Futures Photography Talent programme 2023
Nasjonalmuseet (NO) 2022-2023 in relation to Queer cultural year in Norway
Public lectures:
2024 - Post-Documentation for Arts and Craft at Oslo National Academy of the Arts
2023 - The Notion of Images Moving, Oslo Negativ Photo Festival
2019 - RAKAVAN book presentation, Trondheim Dokumentarfestival
2018 - RAKAVAN book presentation, Nordic Light International Photography Festival
Collections:
“If The Ground Is Taken Away, You Are Floating” (2023), Kunst på Arbeidsplassen
Print publication:
2023 - Encircling Stories photobook published by Heavy Books
2023 - Nasjonale Turistveger 30 år, Arkitektur.no
2021 - Uncertain states Scandinavia (artist own edition) issue 14 released at MaskiniTaal
2021 - “Dette året” photo document initiated by Sofie Amalie Klougart og Christian Belgaux
2021 - Fresh eyes 2021, powered by GUP - Guide to unique photography
2021 - Visual wanderings by Objektiv, initiated by Nina Strand
2019 - Uncertain States of Scandinavia issue 10
2019 - RAKAVAN photobook published by Forlaget Fotografi
2018 - “Ett år etter Rakavan forsvant” hovedsak for Aftenposten, Adressavisen og Aftenbladet.
2018 - Tell the preacher the medicine in issue 15 for Contributor Magazine
2018 - Cover for The list vol. 2
Online publication:
2021 – Paper Journal – on MaskiniTaal
2018 - VICE dk on Rakavan book project
2018 - “Ett år etter Rakavan forsvant” for Aftenposten, Adressavisen og Aftenbladet.
2018 - Outtake from "Rakavan" for Acreati
Grants/Awards:
2025 - Kulturdirektoratet – Arbeidsstipend for Nyetablerte kunstnere, 3 år
2024 - Fritt Ord / Free Speech Foundation, projects funding
2024 - Nordic Photobook Award, Fotogalleriet
2024 - Kulturdirektoratet - Diversestipend for nyetablerte kunstnere
2022 - Kulturrådet - Prosjektstøtte til kunstnere i etableringsfasen
2022 - Kulturrådet - Støtte til Kunstfaglige publikasjoner
2022 - Kulturrådet - Prosjektstøtte til kunstnere i etableringsfasen
2021 - Fresh eyes Talent 2021, powered by GUP - Guide to unique photography
2021 - Norsk Fotografisk fond - Prosjektstøtte
2020 - Fritt ord - Prosjektstøtte
2019 - Young talent prize 2019 / Nationalhistoriske Museum Denmark
2018 - 1.st. place of Fotografis’ portfolio prize 2018