BIOME - Conscious Landscapes

If one takes a map of the Indian sub-continent and follows the coastupward from the Coromandel towards thenorth-east, the path created connects the two biodiversity zones that are prominently featured in the exhibition. While situated many hundreds of kilometres apart, the cities of Chennai and Kolkata are both embraced by the waters of the Bay of Bengal, and share several commonalities pertaining to climate, natural life, and subsequently urban challenges too. ‘Biome’, bringing together artworks by Parvathi Nayar and The Hashtag#Collective, emphasises a recognition of the particularities of place, most importantly the species inhabitation that depends upon specific conditions of water and soil, light and temperature that define the area.

Taking inspiration from the similar ecosystems, the artists have explored the wetlands, aquatic and shoreline vegetation, birds and fauna, along with the numerous elements that make up the Biome. The works create an evocative experience of nature, bringing into focus distinctive sections that celebrate water, earth, mangroves, animalsandbirds. The paintings, drawings, and interactive installations invite viewers to contemplate the many layers of nature and the interdependence that exemplifies life on earth.

Underlying the celebration of environmental beauty and power, the exhibition incites a contemporary conversation on climate justice and human stewardship of the natural world, not only as resources to be consumed, but as a living, breathing entity. In this time of ecological emergencies and climate change, we are faced with the disappearance, and extinction of species due to habitat loss, pollution and industrial toxicity;massive demands for energy, air and water emissions and pressure on groundwater and river systems are wreaking slow violence.

Through a confluence of knowledge and practice, using visual, sensory and technological means, the artists map physical and conceptual pathways amidst these landscapes. In playing with the visible and invisible, and the transition between representation and abstraction, they force us to pause, move, and (re)think experience- everything is not what it seems.

With a history of engagement with environmental subjects,Parvathi Nayar has built a multidisciplinary repertoire that often employs scientific tools as an interface through which to observe, document and articulate her ideas. Her vision envelopes the investigation of microscopic forms, as well as the depiction of encountered reality. In her process, that makes use of graphite drawing and acrylic paint on board for this series, she reconfigures conventional approaches to representation and deliberately expands the possibilities of abstraction.

For Biome, she showcases artwork that extends her ongoing engagement with themes of water, and flora, along with an exploration of diatoms – these beautifully shaped organisms belong to the larger group of micro-algae found in soil and waterbodies. Introduced in this exhibition are a series of subtly coloured paintings on mangroves, birds -including the migratory Flamingo- and a set of works on soil and earth. She establishes a keen balance between a formal engagement with the visual and material aspects of her subjects, and the socio-political and environmental dialogues that surround them.

Parvathi introduces us to the private, internal life of growing elements and natural substances. The microscopic views carry technical specificity as well as visual relationships with other shapes and forms that exist widely in nature. An up-close presentation of a piece of rock can resemble a landscape seen in aerial view, while the distinctive patterns formed by microscopic imagery of water droplets may share similarity with a cosmological arrangement, and so on.

A flower is not just a flower, but carries within it a whole world; a lump of soil is not simply mud, but a conglomeration of traces from the planet’s geographical history; a drop of water thenis not just liquid, but connected in each atom to the entire universe. Tapping into personal and collective memory, Parvathi bears witness to the fact that human existence is part of nature and not separate from it.

Creating art objects through trans-disciplinary collaboration, The Hashtag#collectivepresents anintermingling of perspectives, using a combination of critical focus and playful strategies to bring about dialogue and awareness about various contemporary socio-environmental concerns. Over the years, they have established a methodology of interactive and site-specific works, that integrate audience responses into the meaning and outreach of the installations.

In the series of work presented for Biome, the Collective addresses the presence (and absence) of certain birds and animals common to the wetlands and the Sundarban landscape. The Pond Heron, Grey Plover, Wood Sandpiper, Yellow Wagtail and others feature in a sequence of lenticular prints, along with once thriving but now endangered fauna like the Otter and the Indian Pangolin, in mixed media creations. The mangroves take centre-stage in a compelling largescale work, in which the digitally layered photographic print refers to their importance, and the need for their protection amidst widespread damage.

The lenticular formats and more scaled-up objects emerge from sensibilities that derive from architectural understanding and aesthetic improvisations in physical space. Intrinsically, the imagery is created in a certain way to engender curiosity and provoke thought. Viewers are forced to engage with the work in a dynamic sense; the picture comes together through a dramatic play of revelation and concealment. Peoples’ movement before the work offers almost a ritualistic gesture; a performative act of the body and an activation of space that becomes embedded in memory, in relation to the image. The viewer is always the outsider.

The works offer philosophical insights into cycles of time, engaging with past and present, life and death, preservation and destruction.

Despite being a familiar theme, Biome leaves us viewers with a sense of wonderment in the environment. However, the natural world is often under siege, in film-maker Pradip Krishen’s words, and yet it is necessary to have hope that we will be able to pull back from the brink.

We need to imagine, protect, and realisemore spaces where multiple forms of life can not only survive but thrive.

Lina Vincent 2025