Prithvi Raj, a young artist, is busy wrapping pieces of red cloth on trees outside the art gallery at Dakshina Chitra where Bhin Bhini, an art exhibition portraying livelihoods made precarious by the changing climate, opened on Friday. The intention behind this, Mr. Raj says, is to remind people of the fruitful existence of trees.
Designed to be more than a static display of artwork, the exhibition includes a variety of materials such as sculptures, graphic novels, videos, photo books from the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), in collaboration with the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) and The Forest Way.
Of the eclectic displays, many are from Chennai — a photograph of people in Semmencheri fishing out a car from flood waters by M. Palani Kumar, a ceramic sculpture based on shrinking agricultural fields in the face of urban development by K. Madhavan, and Hari Ganesh’s acrylic painting inspired by disappearing birds from places such as the Radial Road.
While these are locally inspired, the artworks also have a universal touch. One such is a graphic of a series of hand-drawn “maps” by Pritha Umapathy depicting changing land mass. Ms. Umapathy says she went through satellite maps from NASA spanning a century and wanted to show reducing land as a result of rising sea level.
Talking about the different mediums of art, Krishnapriya CP, curator of the exhibition, says, “The PARI archive is vast. So, the idea was to think about how one can experience the archive. One of the things I have tried is experimenting with the photographs. I’ve printed them in different material, worked with scales, and played around with light.”
The exhibition includes a “reading room” by the Delhi-based FICA that shows photographs and dialogues on the agrarian, encouraging people to critically reflect on notions of labour, tools, and natural resources.
To activate the exhibition as a space of learning, Ms. Krishnapriya is working with Tiruvannamalai-based Marudam Farm School, which has developed a climate curriculum, organise sessions for school students.
Bhin Bhini will be open till October 29.
