In Museum Bhavan Dayanita Singh creates a new space between publishing and the museum, an experience where books have the same if not greater artistic value than prints hanging on a gallery wall. Consisting of nine individual “museums” in book form, Museum Bhavan is a miniature version of Singh’s traveling exhibition of the same name whose prints are placed in folding expanding wooden structures (her “photo-architecture”), which she likes to interchange at will.

The images in Museum Bhavan—old and new, intriguingly literal and suggestive—have been intuitively grouped into lyrical chapters in a visual story such as “Little Ladies Museum” and “Ongoing Museum,” as well as more specific series like “Museum of Machines.” Following her Sent a Letter (2008), the starting point for this project, the books are housed in a handmade box and fold out into accordion-like strips which Singh encourages viewers to install and curate as they wish in their own homes. The exhibition thus becomes a book, and the book becomes an exhibition.

Museum of the Future: Portable and Personal – Jordan G. Teicher, The New York Times, 22 May 2017

Museum of Chance: Inside the world of Dayanita Singh – Poonam Saxena, The Hindustan Times, 2 July 2017

She is bringing the museum into our homes – Avantika Bhuyan, Rediff, 3 July 2017

New Ideas in Photo Book Making: Dayanita Singh’s “Museum Bhavan” – Conor Risch, Photo District News, 19 July 2017