Ninth edition of the Delhi Contemporary Art Week tackles ecology and memory

Besides individual gallery showcases, DCAW, spread across three buildings of the Bikaner House and on view till 5 September, also includes two curator-led exhibitions. Bye Bye Monsoon, curated by Adwait Singh, brings together 18 artists to celebrate a synergy between Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable and visual art. The book, which looks closely at a tornado that struck Delhi in the late 1970s, became Singh’s anchor to commission artists to create works that “distinctly situated views on climate exigencies from across the subcontinent”.

“Extreme weather is increasingly becoming part of our everyday experience even as we continue to struggle with how to understand and represent it,” says Singh. What’s interesting is how the weather is metaphorically represented in the artworks to signify not just the geographical climatic conditions but also historical, material and environmental conditions that have brought us to the present times.

The other curated exhibition, This Animate Earth, put together by Annalisa Mansukhani builds on conversations related to the destabilisation of flora and fauna, especially in context of the recent Ken-Betwa Link Project, the redefining of hills by the Supreme Court in relation of the Aravallis, and protests centred on the threat to the forests of Hasdeo Arand by coal mining projects.

On display are artist Chameli Ramachandran’s renditions of flora, which she has been painting for decades, Bakula Nayak’s compelling mixed media on vintage paper showing creepers and flowers merging with and emerging from human figures. Bhikari Pradhan shows the angst and the pressures of farmers, making us pause and reflect on what ails the agrarian practices in contemporary times.

Depicting the human condition

Jaimini Jariwala’s textile work is almost autobiographical, rooted in Surat, a textile city that has shaped her work. Her process, featuring cloth and thread, has evolved over time. Part of Exhibit 320’s showcase, Jariwala’s works, along with 10 other artists, engage with the issues related to urban landscapes, ecological memory, gendered labour, migration, craft, and displacement.

Another interesting display is Blueprint12’s Ways of Being Seen, bringing together 10 artists working across painting, sculpture, photography, textiles, ceramics, drawing, and printmaking. They look at how human beings navigate emotions to understand identity. Aparneet Mann, for instance, takes phulkari, the traditional embroidery of undivided Punjab, to create installations on wire mesh that evoke nostalgia. Then there are paintings by artist JK, that dwell on queer identities in the urban space. While offering a sense of intimacy, the works also question the claustrophobia of our surroundings.

Across DCAW, one can see the curatorial stance leaning towards climate change, identity and artistic experiments. A stark example of this is Deena Pindoria’s acrylic artwork printed on handwoven kota fabric, with its unique square-check khat pattern, showing how the material can be experimented with. Similarly, Juhikadevi Bhanjdeo creates Skin of Home, a fascinating series being showcased by Latitude 28 that uses dyed cotton fabric and safety pins arranged in a repeating pattern to reflect acts of self-mending. The objects, which are so typical of any household—many women in India even today wear safety pins in their glass bangles, just in case they're needed to mend any wardrobe malfunction while on the move.

Experiments with materiality

At Shrine Empire’s showcase, the gallery’s co-founder Anahita Taneja points to a newly commissioned work, What the River Remembers, Must the Stones Forget?, done by Chris Besumatery. It uses oil pastels on corrugated aluminium sheets to show the gushing river carrying with it stones and silt. The mind immediately goes to recent videos showing the overflowing glacial lake and resulting in Nepal. The artist probably looked at the river for its beauty, but for the viewer, the imagery can also be synonymous with the destruction that climate disasters bring. Sangita Maity’s Changing Course of the River offers similar food for thought as a set of 30 artworks in copper make us look at rivers, water bodies and their sources from a new perspective.

Climate change also needs to be seen in the context of communities, personal histories, and the fragility of natural resources. In that context, work by Smitha M. Babu, being showcased by Vadehra Art Gallery, stands out. The artist revisits matriarchal lineages, women-led labour, and ecological connections to mark the relationship that has existed for time immemorial between people, land, and sea. Anju Dodiya’s Studio Fragments, previously presented at Frieze Masters, London, is also on display at the gallery’s booth.