“The loss of a river is an aching thing,” Arundhati Roy lamented in Dam/Age, a 2003 film by Aradhana Seth about Roy’s involvement in the Narmada dam project. The river’s path, controlled and centralized, was to be transformed into the Nervuvian fantasy of a “shining staircase of amenable water.” Around the same time, artist Atul Bhalla began considering the ecological and social ramifications of tampering with water, focusing his attentions on the Yamuna River. In “…in another sweat,” a show of Bhalla’s photography, video, and installation work at Mumbai’s Project 88, the artist continues to push the issues of conservation and compassion. Hopefully in 2009, people are finally listening.
The idea of the Yamuna as a place of worship and a source of cleansing waters has been a point of interest for Bhalla in older works like Death, the river and me and I was not waving but drowning from 2005, where he incorporated his own body into images to critique the paradox of purity and pollution in holy Hindu waters. While the issue of water is undoubtedly a hot one, particularly when Mumbai’s government is increasingly issuing cuts to the supply after a difficult monsoon, Bhalla’s works envision the minor meanderings of the Yamuna River, focusing on scenes that are charged with old personal connections rather than overt political messages. Real Water (2009) is comprised of 48 pictures of the various pumps along the Yamuna embankment that also serve as homes to the ever-present guards. Some guards pose outside of their abodes, while other pumps appear totally abandoned. Yamuna Underpass (2009) and He Sang to the River (2009) construct the life and destruction of the river as a function of time, and show the river as the center of daily life.
Bhalla’s works can, on occasion, come across as didactic. Yet some pieces, such as Piau II, an aurally affective installation composed of taps continuously flowing with unstoppable water, can make even the most unapologetic water-waster cringe.
...in another sweat
Atul Bhalla
December 2, 2009 - December 26, 2009
Galerie 88 - Project 88
Courtesy: www.artslant.com |
