Image: Firstsite, Colchester
Firstsite in Colchester is presenting ‘Arpita Shah: Nalini’, a photographic series examining the connected histories of Shah, her mother and her grandmother across India, East Africa and the United Kingdom. The exhibition opened on 13 June and remains on view through 4 October 2026.
Developed across three geographic regions, the series considers family history alongside questions of home, belonging and shifting cultural identities. Firstsite describes the project as a photographic exploration of the relationships and histories linking three generations of Shah’s family, placing personal experience within a wider transnational context.
The exhibition’s title, ‘Nalini’, also appears in the title of the work ‘English Blue from the Series Nalini’, identified by Firstsite in its image credits. The gallery has published installation views of the presentation, documenting the exhibition as part of its 2026 programme in Colchester.
The project brings together locations associated with Shah’s family history rather than treating identity as fixed to a single place. Its movement between India, East Africa and the UK reflects the geographic routes named by Firstsite and provides the framework through which the artist explores inherited experiences, attachment and cultural change.
Firstsite’s accompanying material says that Shah discussed the exhibition in an interview, focusing on the ideas of home, belonging and changing cultural identities. No further details of the interview or the individual photographs are supplied in the available exhibition information.
‘Arpita Shah: Nalini’ is one of Firstsite’s free exhibitions. The gallery’s exhibitions programme also includes ‘Duncan Grant: Worlds Through Desire: From Drawing to Cruising to DMs’, on view from 11 July to 8 November 2026, and ‘Simon Carter: From the Landscape’, scheduled from 19 September 2026 to 17 January 2027. Firstsite is located at Lewis Gardens, High Street, Colchester, Essex, and lists its Tuesday-to-Saturday opening hours as 10am to 5pm, with later closing at 10pm from Thursday to Saturday; Sunday opening is 10am to 5pm.
