In early 2017, designer Gaurav Jai Gupta met scientist Anirudh Sharma to talk about air pollution in the national capital. “2017 was the first time Delhi's air pollution hit us,” says Mr. Gupta. He decided to work with Mr. Sharma in addressing the alarming levels of poor air quality. An alumnus of National Fashion Institute of Technology, Delhi and Chelsea College of Art, London, Mr. Gupta had founded Akaaro, a Delhi-based sustainable fashion studio, nearly a decade ago. Sharma, a Boston-based researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a co-founder of the Grabiki Institute, which began making ink from carbon recovered from air pollution.
“My medium is fashion and textiles and I decided to combine craft and technology.”
An artistic interpretation of Delhi's disastrous air quality, Kalchakra is a gigantic, woven, colorful installation that resembles an interconnected galaxy, illustrating both problems and solutions in swirling outlines of color. I am. Mr. Gupta first made a dye from the ink, which he eventually used in yarn. “We also need innovation and experimentation to understand what the future of textiles should be,” says Mr. Gupta, who last year exhibited his first sari at London's Design Museum using a dye made from air ink. “It was called ‘Pollution Sally,’” he added. “If we can find solutions to people's everyday problems, it will help us have a sustainable future.”
Sustain India (February 2-15), organized by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a Delhi-based sustainability think tank, along with artists Jiten Thukral and Soumir Tagra, people and artists come together to highlight the urgency of tackling climate change. CEEW and a jury including Thukral and Tagra will fund projects by three of his emerging artists whose work is linked to grassroots activism that contribute to the dialogue around climate action and sustainability. I was selected for a 5-month fellowship. The exhibition comprises the works of three of his artist colleagues – Debasmita Ghosh, Manjot Kaur and Rachna Toshniwal, as well as seven others of his invited from across the country.
“Eight out of 10 Indians live in areas vulnerable to extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, cyclones and related phenomena,” said CEEW Founder and CEO ) says Arunabha Ghosh. “This is happening to us now, it's not a distant story. But at the same time, there is also resilience, whether we are trying to reduce the loss of life or not.
Sustaina India aims to use art as a tool in the midst of scientific facts to raise awareness and stimulate thought in the fight for the survival of our planet. “I think the important thing here is that it's a false dichotomy that science is somewhere and art is somewhere, because together it's a lived experience,” Ghosh said. I will explain. “So we thought a way to bring this story to the forefront was to create a fellowship where artists understand the science and feed back into the way the science is expressed in art forms. It gives me an opportunity,” he added.
Kolkata-born architect Debasmita Ghosh's 'Living with the Land' installation at the exhibition draws on the traditions of the Khond community in Odisha's Rayagada district and traditions that are challenged by the infusion of modern materials such as cement and asbestos. It reflects the changing pattern of mud houses. “It wasn't just about the house. This change affected every aspect of life in the indigenous Adivasi community,” she says, after meeting with members of the Khond community for the first time five years ago. says Ghosh, who decided to live inside. Mumbai-based artist Rachna Toshniwal's installation 'There is No Such Thing Called Waste' uses waste collected from Alibaug near Mumbai to construct a giant tapestry. Toshniwal worked with 20 women from a coastal fishing community to collect waste washed up on Alibaug's Sarai beach to investigate the role of humans as co-creators of matter. The miniature models of shrimp and turtles made of thread made from waste, which form the exhibition's giant tapestry, demonstrate the restoration of women's dignity as contributors to society.
Chandigarh-born artist Manjot Kaur's 'Forest Parliament' is also a multimedia installation that explores the sovereignty of women's bodies and ecosystems. “This installation aims to make us aware of what rights we have as humans in the forest,” says Kaur, an alumnus of Chandigarh University. “It is a philosophy that understands how many resources humans are extracting from nature without considering how it affects us and our future generations,” Chandigarh added Kaur, who splits her time between Vancouver, Canada.
Curated by Jiten Thukral, Sumir Tagra and Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi, this exhibition proposes redirecting the conversation around climate change and sustainability through storytelling that engages a wider audience. Artist Parov Saikia, whose Rahmaria Archive is part of the exhibition, presents five photographs that explore the historical and cultural connections between floods that threaten his village of Rahmaria in Dibrugarh district of Assam. recorded through photographs. In Particles of a Cloud, Sound Artist Bhaskar Rao uses his field recordings from his Pradesh building in Himachal to interpret soundscapes as living heritage.
Artwork expands the frontiers of knowledge, helps us redraw boundaries and imagine new ways of acting. “If you look at condo communities, on the one hand, the repeated rains are changing the houses from traditional materials to modern ones, and on the other hand, the mud-based walls of some homes are weathering. Meanwhile, homes are getting warmer,” says Ghosh of CEEW. “So the art itself triggers thinking about doing research on, for example, what are passive architectures that can reduce heat loads while increasing resistance to extreme climates? Provocation also helps us ask these questions in terms of research.”
