At the Neighbour Art Gallery, cinema is not something you just watch and leave behind. It is something you wander through, sit with, sleep beside, and even scribble over. ‘The Seeds Sprout Dreams’, an unconventional exhibition currently on view in the city, invites visitors to experience cinema as memory, emotion, and shared life rather than as a finished product framed within formal institutions.
The exhibition has been organised by Kaddukkas, a collective of young filmmakers, researchers and designers who are invested in cinema.
“The aim is to let visitors freely associate with cinema in the space on their own terms and recall memories and feelings while they are associating with the space,” says Laxmi, head of production of Kaddukkas.
Developed over a six-to-eight-month collaborative process, the exhibition brings together works by five artists selected through an open call. Weekly workshops, conversations and shared creative process, shaped the project. The emphasis is on building a community around cinema and memory instead of producing polished artworks.
Unlike the same old gallery exhibitions, ‘The Seeds Sprout Dreams’ unfolds across six interconnected spaces that resemble a cyber cafe, a living room, a child’s messy bedroom, resting corners, and in-between spaces.
The design encourages visitors to move freely, without a fixed route or order, mirroring the way memories surface unpredictably. The moment you step into the experience you feel as though you are part of cinema. A movie is projected onto a wall, surrounding you. Seating areas, floor cushions and resting spaces slow the pace of viewing, inviting people to stay within that experience.
The exhibition features audio-visual works by artists such as Megan Arranagu Reddy (Can I Watch?), Shradha Devkota (Do You Remember This Too?), Layl Ali (Miraan Maa Story), Fahad Naveed (The Neighbour’s Bollywood), Ishaan Gupta (India is a Law Unto Itself), and Erika Tan (Persistent Visions).
Visitors are free to draw on walls, play with toys scattered through the space, sleep, or write down thoughts using papers and pens provided across the gallery. Many of these pages already carry reflections, doodles and notes left behind by earlier visitors, gradually becoming part of the exhibition itself.
More than a container, the space becomes an interactive space. “The intention was to move away from the same ‘white cube’ format and instead recreate the social and emotional contexts in which cinema is often seen — at home, among friends, through repetition, and through memory,” say the organisers.
Ketan Dua, sound designer, core team member and part of the production management, says the team chose to move away from oversaturated metropolitan art centres like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
“We wanted to engage with emerging cultural spaces and new audiences,” he says, adding that the collaboration with Neighbour Gallery grew organically through informal conversations and shared interests. This, he explains, made Thiruvananthapuram the right city for the exhibition’s spirit.
Ketan Dua and Laxmi emphasise that ‘The Seeds Sprout Dreams’ does not attempt to convey a single, fixed meaning. “Instead, it allows viewers to create their own interpretations through personal memories and emotional responses,” says Ketan.
Audience reactions have varied from discomfort and unease to nostalgia and warmth. Some visitors found the spaces unsettling, while others described them as deeply familiar, even comforting.