What happens to our sense of time when we cross the threshold into another world? How does our perception of reality change when we enter a different culture, speak another language, or move into the digital realm? Austrian artist Eva-Maria Biribauer’s exhibition Time Loop – Stories about Time Travel in Hindu Cosmology opens on 8 October at the Amrita Sher-Gil Cultural Centre of the Embassy of India in Budapest. Created especially for the Budapest exhibition, the series brings together Hindu cosmology, time travel and the idea of the multiverse, drawing on the artist’s own experiences and connection with India.
Sometimes, a single step is enough to change our sense of time
For Eva-Maria Biribauer, the story of Time Loop began with just such an ordinary moment. When she walked into the Embassy of India in Budapest, she felt as though she had entered another world. That sudden shift in her perception of space and time later became the starting point for an entire series of paintings. Biribauer says she has experienced a similar feeling on very special occasions, when moving between countries or cultures. It feels as if time would bend and, for a moment, a passage opened between two different realities.
Her journey towards India, however, began much earlier. Biribauer studied fashion and costume design in Munich in the late 1990s, when she first became closely acquainted with Indian culture and philosophy. She eventually travelled to India for the first time in 2012, and the country gradually became part of her artistic thinking as well. She read Indian literature, formed personal connections and began reconsidering aspects of her own religious and cultural background. One result was her painting series Jesus Be My Buddha, in which she brought together and contrasted symbols from different spiritual traditions.
If you missed it: India and Hungary strengthen ties in Budapest: Yoga, digital skills and a unique cultural fusion
From Shiva’s energy to the Mechwart Liget “gang”
The works in Time Loop were created between May and September 2026. During this period, Biribauer produced 26 new works, with around 32 pieces presented in the Budapest exhibition. Most are acrylic on canvas or paper, alongside works incorporating collage and pencil.
Movement is one of the central motifs of the series. Figures run, jump and fly, sometimes almost dissolving as they pass through portals in time. The compositions are deliberately off-balance: rather than stillness, Biribauer is interested in moments when everything seems to be in the process of transformation.
Time Loop unfolds through three interconnected storylines. The first, The Time Traveller, is dominated by Indian yellow, red and light blue, with the latter referencing the visual representation of certain Hindu deities. Biribauer also draws inspiration from Shiva’s transformative energy. The second storyline, Lush Garden, is a resting place filled with greens and yellows – a garden where the time traveller can pause between journeys.
Then, in the third chapter, Budapest unexpectedly enters the story.
The members of the Mechwart Liget Bus Stop Gang move between worlds, appearing and disappearing whenever they please and opening time portals wherever they choose. Somewhere near the Mechwart Liget bus stop, they eventually cross paths with the time traveller. With her semi-transparent figures in blue, pink, black and yellow, Biribauer introduces a playful, almost cinematic twist to the story.
This narrative approach is no coincidence. Alongside her career as an artist, Biribauer spent 17 years working in the costume departments of major film productions. She began her career as an intern at Berlin’s Schaubühne, later worked at Vienna’s Burgtheater, and eventually moved into film. Her credits include Klimt, starring John Malkovich, and Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds.
The multiverse is within us
While working on Time Loop, Biribauer was reading Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s 1927 book The Hindu View of Life. She says Hindu thought had never felt quite so close to her before. This time, she became particularly interested in ideas surrounding the infinite and constantly moving nature of the mind, and the possibility of multiple layers of reality existing alongside one another.
In this sense, time travel in the exhibition is not primarily a science-fiction concept. Biribauer approaches it as something much closer to everyday experience. Arriving in another country, speaking a different language, or moving between the physical and digital worlds can all shift our surroundings – and with them, our perception of time and even the way we see ourselves.
This leads to one of the exhibition’s central ideas: we are all time travellers. As Biribauer puts it: “The multiverse is within us. It just needs to be explored.”
Exhibition information
What: Time Loop – Stories about Time Travel in Hindu Cosmology
When: 8 October – 6 November 2026
Meet the artist / guided tours with Eva-Maria Biribauer: 19-22 October
Where: Amrita Sher-Gil Cultural Centre, Embassy of India, 14 Búzavirág Street, 1025 Budapest
Admission: Free
The exhibition can be visited during the opening hours of the Amrita Sher-Gil Cultural Centre, Monday to Friday, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.
