Anup Mathew Thomas: Two new books, two new works plus an old one for good measure

With Two new books, two new works plus an old one for good measure, Anup Mathew Thomas presents, for the first time to audiences in Berlin, a concise yet compelling selection of his work. Bringing together works developed over the last two decades alongside new ones produced during his DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program fellowship, the exhibiton at daadgalerie explores what happens when an unapologetically hyperlocal artistic practice—such as that of Thomas—is transplanted into a different context, and how such a body of work positions itself within it. 

Anup Mathew Thomas's works dwell at the threshold of documentation and fact, and between fiction and fable. They draw their persuasive and imaginative power from tensions between text and image, observation and interpretation, calling into question the status of photographic images and journalistic writing as means of conveying truth or knowledge about the world. By offering textual mediation to his photographs and assuming the role of narrator, the artist purposefully directs the viewer’s attention toward specific themes and considerations, offering subtle cues rather than fixed meanings. What creeps in at the gaps between reporting and storytelling is a space of ambiguity that shifts how we see the familiar and ordinary, reframing the contingencies and uncertainties that shape everyday life—its social norms, customs, traditions, and myths.

Curated and produced by Raisa Galofre and Malte Roloff.

Anup Mathew Thomas is an artist based in Berlin. Working primarily with the photograph, his works engage ostensibly local narratives, introducing audiences to stories that may have gone missing from the archive. Over the last two decades, he has produced a series of projects that engage with and make reference to the cultural history of Kerala. He was a Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program in 2024/2025. He received the Han Nefkens Foundation BACC Award for Contemporary Art in 2015 and was a recipient of the Abraaj Group Art Prize in 2014.