The Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru, is presenting an upcoming exhibition titled “mild tooth of milk”, and is slated to run from 12 December 2025 to 31 March 2026 at the historic Dutch Warehouse in Fort Kochi. This solo show features works by Dutch artist afra eisma,, whose art is both playful and political at the same time, and equally weaves together softness, colour, texture, and activism. This exhibition will open concurrently with the Kochi-Muziris Biennale on the same date. eisma’s exhibition provides a soothing pause amid the usual intensity of a global art event, crafting a welcoming space for everyone. The artist brings two bodies of work to life, hush and warrior garments, each projecting a different way of engaging with vulnerability, memory, resistance, and community.
A Patchwork of Emotion and Texture
eisman’s art is a celebration of the objectivity of the materials she engages in her craft. She involves soft carpets, intricate ceramics, and delicate silk and organza textiles to frame her artwork. The exhibition aims to be a democratic space for the viewers where people can actively engage with the art itself and interact and reflect on the things that feel both personal and political. The exhibition broadly embodies two broad categories of work, hush and warrior garments.
In Hush, she creates an environment that feels more like a gallery that has just been inhabited with life. The carpets, ceramics, and textiles are arranged in beautiful colour sequences and act as companions to the rudimentary subject. She weaves a dreamworld where innocence, curiosity, and gentle unease coexist. This theme will dominate the first floor of the Dutch Warehouse, presenting a large-scale tactile corpus of artwork. The soft installations feature an array of hand-crafted forms such as silver cones, cat-like creatures, conjoined heads, fun-sized shoes, etc. There is due emphasis on a playful ambivalence which engenders a non-judgemental environment, welcoming a direct emotional response from the visitors. As people move through the installation, removing their shoes and feeling the fabrics with bare hands becomes a ritual, creating a sense of sensory experience while critically viewing the themes. This enhances the emotional resonance of the art and amplifies its imprint in the minds of people.
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In contrast, the other genre, the warrior garments, brings a charged political and emotional energy. This segment features the designs of garments sewn from silk and organza. These pieces are hand-painted activist text that records the artist’s reflections on personal and societal anger and rage as catalysts for transformation. In a world where clothing often masks pain, these garments expose wounds, open scars, and demand attention. This generates a feeling of awe and a tinge of emotional resistance. This collection breaks the concrete separation between what’s emotional and what’s overtly political by challenging the traditional notions about vulnerability and weakness. The artist also dedicated a space to the survivors of sexual violence, christened “soft conversations.” eisma legitimized the catalytic force bound in hidden emotions that forms an energy, which is equally capable of bringing political change and offering a pathway towards healing. She beautifully channels pain into collective memory and solidarity, projecting the other side of vulnerability, i.e, strength.
Together, both segments create a very deeply layered narrative. It adjoins playfulness and resistance; tenderness and survival, and much more. This space not only projects the juxtapositions but also seeks to bring people a step closer to healing. Emotions, often relegated to the private, are reclaimed as shared, public, and necessary.
Exhibition details
| Event | Details |
|---|---|
| Title | mild tooth of milk |
| Artist | Afra Eisma (Dutch) |
| Organiser | Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru |
| Venue | Dutch Warehouse, Fort Kochi (First Floor) |
| Dates | December 12, 2025 – March 31, 2026 |
| Collaborative Show | Everything Leaks by Neighbour (Ground Floor) |
| Key Materials | Soft carpets, ceramics, silk, organza textiles |
| Themes | Tenderness, Resistance, Vulnerability, Healing, Play |
Key Highlights
- In hush, visitors are invited to remove their shoes and physically interact with a large tactile installation, soft carpets adorned with surreal forms. The work evokes a whimsical “meeting ground,” urging a return to innocence, playfulness, and shared vulnerability.
- The warrior garments, sewn in delicate silk and organza, carry hand-painted activist texts, transforming clothing into statements of resistance, pain, healing, and solidarity.
- The Dutch Warehouse, with its historic charm and maritime air of Fort Kochi, offers the perfect setting for this exhibition. Against a city that has historically traded in spices, culture, and ideas, eisma’s dreamlike textiles forge a contemporary site of meeting and introspection.
- mild tooth of milk emerges as a tender, intimate counterpoint to large-scale works.
- The opening on December 12 will be followed by a conversation on December 13 featuring afra eisma and Meenkashi Thirukode, Founder of School of Instituting Otherwise, providing crucial context to the artist’s vision
- The exhibition is free of cost to make art accessible. Viewers are encouraged to linger, interact, rest, and reflect. By creating a space of softness and care, eisma invites a different rhythm of engagement, rooted in empathy and collective presence.
A Re-imagined Sphere for all
The impact of eisma’s exhibition symbolizes a bigger picture. It reflects the maturing art landscape, which is keen to chip in global perspectives on contemporary issues. eisma’s art stands at the radical plane of artistic ideologies and requires an emotional armour to confront. Set alongside the lavishly curated Kochi-Muziris Biennale, this exhibition stands out for its refusal of grandeur, as it deeply percolates into the emotional ruptures of the spectator and heals them to some extent.
The particular highlight of trauma, especially based on gender-based violence, is a commendable theme. afra eisma’s art is not decorative but a direct challenge to “comfort and luxury” associated with art; she consciously chooses to provoke the audience in order to extract an emotional reaction. The warrior garments don’t just occupy space; they carry stories, histories, and resistances. The exhibition champions the idea that genuine strength is found not in impenetrable hardness, but in the courage to be vulnerable and to engage with emotions. Overall, mild tooth of milk embodies precisely what contemporary art should aspire to be at its best: not merely visually arresting, but emotionally alive; not just a display, but a space, a community.
