Marking two landmark milestones — the 150th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and 75 years of the Navajivan Trust building on Ashram Road, Ahmedabad — this show brings together the collective expressions of artists from Navajivan Studios, in a heartfelt tribute that commemorates both the past and joyfully celebrates the enduring legacy of this more than a century old institution. Navajivan Trust campus, as we know today, was inaugurated by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on 31st October 1950 coinciding with the birth date of the iron man of India.
While the building on Ashram Road marks its 75th year, the story of Navajivan Trust began much earlier — on 7 September 1919, when its first journal ‘Navajivan’ (in Gujarati language) was published under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi. A decade later, in 1929, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel joined the Trust as a trustee and the first chairperson, a position he held with quiet commitment until his passing in December 1950. Over the past 106 years, Navajivan has remained more than a publishing house — it has been a steadfast observer of India’s changing social, political, and cultural landscape, carrying forward its legacy through books, journals, and meaningful printed works that continue to inspire and inform.
At the heart of this show is a spirit of dialogue between history and contemporary expression. Each participating artist engaged with carefully researched materials — narratives, archival content, and lesser-known facts — around themes such as Navajivan and Sardar Patel, Sardar Patel and Ahmedabad, and the intertwined legacies of leadership, print, the place and values. Rather than dictating interpretation, the process allowed each artist to choose what to respond to — emotionally, politically, visually.
The result is a rich, layered body of work that speaks not only to the past but also to its echoes in our present. The artworks presented in this show span a range of mediums — from framed visuals to immersive installations — and together form a rich, multi-layered experience.
This exhibition is both a tribute and an invitation: a tribute to those who built independent India, and an invitation to see how their stories still live on — in books and buildings, on streets and walls, and in the hearts of people who keep imagining and creating.
List of Artists:
Avani Varia, Bharvi Trivedi, Dipti Shukla, Gopal Parmar , Jayesh Shukla, Jigna Gaudana,
Bansidhar Khatri, Mahendra Mistry, Milan Desai, Nilesh Suthar, Rakesh Patel, Roma Patel,
Ronak Sopariwala, Samvedana Vaissya and Sumedh Kumar Kishan.
