This project attempts to revive the memory of the vulture in the city, once abundant and now missing. Through it, he reflects on the human relationship to ecology, human vulnerability within larger natural
systems, as well as the unthinking, destructive potential of human developmental cycles.

The Asian Vulture is almost extinct as a species. Found in tens of millions in the 1980s, these birds have all but disappeared throughout the subcontinent. Delhi too was replete with vulture nesting sites on its Ridge Forest as well as other areas. This majestic bird, once routinely observed soaring high on summer thermals and manifesting in a miraculous flash beside roadside carcasses, can no longer be seen. Studies grimly indicate that the Oriental white-backed vulture has declined in population by 99.9% since 1992, while long-billed and slender-billed vultures have together declined by over 97%. This rate of extinction is probably one of the most rapid in recorded human history.

Generally regarded and denigrated as a ‘scavenger’ thriving on carrion, the vulture paradoxically also has revered status as mythological icon. In the Hindu epic Ramayana, the vulture took the form of fearless Garuda, half-man, half-bird, messenger of the gods. The vulture adorned the crown of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt, and was associated with Mut the mother goddess and the goddess Nekhebet. In India, the Tower of Silence in Mumbai is the final destination for Parsi corpses ritually left for consumption by vultures as a mode of release into the afterlife.
However, the reasons for the vulture’s decline are far from sacred. It is now widely accepted that the common analgesic anti-inflammatory drug Diclofenac, given to livestock to increase milk production, caused kidney failure in vultures who ate the carcasses. It is a classic case of the human industrial cycle ravaging and irreversibly destroying an entire species. Today the only vultures visible in Delhi are two stuffed specimens at the National Museum of Natural History at Mandi House.

The project’s site-specific photographic and light-box installations will attempt to revive the memory of the vulture in the city, using images, text and video to focus on the human relationship to ecology, human vulnerability within larger natural systems, as well as the destructive potential of human developmental cycles. In an effort is also to foreground the museum as a site preserving the idea of nature in an overwhelmingly concretised urban topography.

The project will offer public participatory events, such as a ‘vulture walk’ in the forest, readings on ecology and extinction through an invited event “The Vulture Readings” and a booklet about the vulture. These events will be collaboratively undertaken with scientists, ornithologists, performance artists, and those involved in vulture conservation.