September is a particularly strong month for South Asia-related exhibitions at UK public institutions, all free to visit.

A Mughal Songbook
8 September 2026–7 March 2027 | Fitzwillian Museum, Cambridge

The Fitzwilliam Museum explores the world of music, poetry and performance in Mughal South Asia through the extraordinary Plowden songbook, a rare manuscript of 77 songs in Persian, Urdu, Classical Hindi and Punjabi. Paintings, manuscripts and music bring the cultural life of late Mughal India vividly to life.

Sunil Gupta: Life with a Camera, 1970–Now
19 September 2026–31 January 2027 | Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge

A major survey of the New Delhi-born photographer’s five-decade career. More than 130 works explore migration, identity, tradition and modernity, while tracing Gupta’s influential contribution to photography and queer visibility in India and the UK.

Anwar Jalal Shemza: A Circle, A Square, A Puzzle
21 September 2026–16 January 2027 | Dulwich Picture Gallery

A major retrospective of the Pakistani-born modernist Anwar Jalal Shemza, whose distinctive visual language brought together South Asian cultural references with the formal vocabulary of European modernism.

Amar Kanwar
23 September 2026–31 January 2027 | Serpentine North, Serpentine Galleries

New Delhi-based artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar presents a major solo exhibition of new and existing films and multi-screen installations. His poetic work examines the legacies of Partition and decolonisation, as well as displacement, power, justice and memory.

Balraj Khanna: Lines of Flight
30 September 2026–21 February 2027 | Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

Ikon presents the first major survey of the Indian-born British artist Balraj Khanna (1939–2024), bringing together work from across his long career and exploring his distinctive contribution to British and South Asian modernism.