Nov 28 2025 to Nov 30 2025 11 a.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Exhibition Opening: 11 am | Friday, 28 Nov
Exhibition Timings: 11 am – 8 pm
Exhibition on show until: 8 pm | Sunday, 30 Nov

Walkthroughs:
6 pm | Friday, 28 Nov
2 pm | Saturday, 29 Nov
5 pm | Saturday, 29 Nov
1 pm | Sunday, 30 Nov
5 pm | Sunday, 30 Nov

Through the Lens and the Lab – Capturing and Crafting a Launch (Panel Discussion) | 6:30 pm | Nov 29 | Seminar Halls
with Dheeraj Khandelwal, Susmita Mohanty and Jatan Mehta

Mission Moonshot (Kids Session) | 11 am | Nov 30 | Library
with Menaka Raman

Some childhood visions take flight only when the world is finally ready to meet them.

For Dheeraj Khandelwal, standing at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre was more than an assignment; it was the moment when years of fascination, planning, and anticipation aligned. After weeks of preparation and just forty breathless seconds behind the lens, he captured images that held the awe, scale, and quiet emotion of an event watched by over a billion people.

Footprints on the Moon presents those rare photographs: fragments of a launch that disappeared into the sky almost as quickly as it appeared. Yet, like the mission’s own lunar footprints, the moment left an imprint that lingers.

In collaboration with:

Speakers & Facilitators

Dheeraj Khandelwal
Fine Art & Documentary Photographer
Dheeraj Khandelwal is a Chennai-based fine art and documentary photographer whose practice bridges culture, nature, and emotion through evocative visual storytelling. A self-taught artist who shifted from engineering to photography in 2014, he explores human behaviour, environmental change, and cultural memory through images spanning sacred rituals, remote terrains, and intimate urban moments.

A Nikon Ambassador and artist with YellowKorner Gallery, Paris, his work has been exhibited internationally—from Times Square to Rome and Tokyo—and appears on 4,000+ airport displays across India. Selected for LIFE Magazine’s prestigious Showbook Collection, Dheeraj has collaborated with the Government of India, Nikon India, and leading art institutions.

Susmita Mohanty
Cultural ambassador & Space Entrepreneur
Susmita Mohanty is a renaissance woman whose work and entrepreneurial career cuts across the realms of space, architecture, design, policy, diplomacy. Her work in reflects her multifaceted educational journey—she trained in engineering and product design in India, studied space sciences in France, and went on to co-found the crossover discipline of space architecture, in which she pursued a PhD in Sweden.

Susmita’s career began with NASA and Boeing before she turned entrepreneur – co-founding companies across three continents: MOONFRONT in San Francisco, LIQUIFER in Vienna, and EARTH2ORBIT in Bangalore. More recently, she has turned her attention to addressing global concerns of safety, security, and sustainability in space through dialogue and diplomacy through Spaceport SARABHAI, a forward-thinking space policy think-tank she founded.

Susmita is also deeply invested in fostering cross-disciplinary innovation. Together with her husband, Siddharth Das, she co-founded MAD Salon+Lab, a cultural platform that bridges art, science, and the humanities through collaborative projects.

Menaka Raman
Author
Menaka Raman is a children’s book author and podcast producer. She has written picture books, chapter books and two novels. Her book Loki Takes Guard won the Valley of Words Award for Writing for Young Adults in 2020 and her book How to Win an Election, A Most Unreliable Guide Won the AG BLF Book Prize 2024 in the Fiction (Children) category. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies published by Penguin, Speaking Tiger and Scholastic India. She has written about parenting and children’s books for The Hindu, New Indian Express, Vogue and other publications.