- The year-long new exhibition season begins from August 9, 2025 with programmes every weekend.
- It aims to explore humanity’s intimate, yet often complex relationship with what we eat.
- Through immersive exhibits, hands-on workshops, thought-provoking talks, film screenings, and critical conversations, the exhibition season aims to navigate the intersections of food, climate, culture, science, and technology, inviting audiences to engage and reflect.
- The exhibition season brings together over 12 experimentors, 30 mediators and over 35 national and international facilitators (artists, scientists and other collaborators).
Bengaluru; August 9, 2025: Science Gallery Bengaluru (SGB), one of the world’s leading public institutions at the intersection of science, culture, art, and technology, today announced the opening of its new year-long exhibition-season ‘CALORIE: The Breakdown’. Open to the public from August 9, 2025, the exhibition season explores an immersive exploration of humanity’s deep, complex, and often fraught relationship with food, and is supported by the Gates Foundation. Inaugurated today by Dr. Ekroop Caur, Secretary of the Department of Electronics, IT, Biotechnology, and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka in presence of Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson, Biocon Ltd and Board Member, Science Gallery Bengaluru; Hari Menon, Director, South and South East Asia, Gates Foundation and Dr. Jahnavi Phalkey, Founding Director, Science Gallery Bengaluru. The CALORIE exhibition will run from August 2025 to July 2026.
The Gallery’s overall mission is to inculcate science into society and explore the relationship between art, science, and society. The CALORIE exhibits explore these by looking at the science of the production of food, societal adaptations to it, the politics around how food reaches our plates, how we treat food, and artistic and interactive exhibits around it.
Speaking on the new exhibition season CALORIE, Dr. Jahnavi Phalkey, Founding Director, Science Gallery Bengaluru, said, “CALORIE is an invitation to look beyond what’s on our plate and to interrogate the systems, values, and choices that feed us. This season aims to foster a deeper public understanding of how food connects us, biologically, socially, and politically. In a world facing overlapping food, health, and climate crises, we ask: what does a calorie truly mean?”
Lauding the CALORIE exhibition season, Hari Menon, Director, South and South East Asia, Gates Foundation, said, “We in India have always had a very deep and sacred relationship with our food. As food habits and consumption evolve, reconnecting with the science and traditional wisdom around our foods is a good way to reconnect with its health, nutrition, and environmental impacts. I am sure CALORIE at the Science Gallery will help its audiences better understand and appreciate the various aspects of how India connects to food and our local food systems. The Gates Foundation is privileged to be associated with this endeavor.”
Key Highlights:
- The exhibition seasons is divided into four:
- Public Engagement Programmes (for public at large): Exhibits, Public Lectures, Events, Food Festival and Film Festival.
- Mentorship Initiative Programmes (for young adults): Experimentors, Ask Me Anything, Workshops, Masterclasses and Participatory Programmes
- Learning Tools & Publications (for use beyond the Exhibition): Exhibition Reader / Catalogue, Exhibition-in-a-Box, Activity Handbook and Open Courseware
- Digital Initiatives and Outreach: (for audiences outside the Gallery): Digital Exhibition Platform, Social Media Engagement, Travelling exhibitions and Outreach Events
- CALORIE exhibition-season brings together over 12 experimentors, 30 mediators and over 35 facilitators, including scientists, farmers, chefs, designers, artists, storytellers, and youth voices, to reimagine food in all its dimensions.
- Throughout the year, there will be weekend programmes around the themes of foods, encouraging members of the public to participate in understanding processes behind our diets and food culture.
- Through thought-provoking exhibits, hands-on workshops, critical conversations, film screenings, and guided experiences, the Science Gallery Bengaluru’s CALORIE exhibition will offer a platform for audiences, especially those aged 15 to 30, to get insights into the future of food and food culture.
- The exhibition navigates the intersections of food, climate, culture, science, and technology, inviting audiences to engage and reflect through immersive exhibits, hands-on workshops, thought-provoking talks, film screenings, and critical conversations.
- Experimentors will also obtain post-graduate certification in science communication and museum education from the University of Glasgow after one year.
