Ravi Agarwal and KHOJ International Artist Workshop organised an artists’ collaborative event Disappearance as Work in Progress- Approaches to Ecological Romanticism.

The event was a contribution to the Maldives Pavillion in Venice Bienniale 2013.

Ecology has been presented as an homogeneous term with the image of our fragile planet portrayed as a uniform sphere of action and activity. However the current ecological crises, which encompass forests, biodiversity, climate change, toxicity, land use, GM foods etc, have roots in the histories of colonization, progress and development. Local knowledges, cultures, and relationships have often been submerged in dominant ideas which have shaped community relationships and geographies.

Eco-aesthetics, as a response to this, has linkages in social political landscapes, anthropogenic and animistic concerns, and even challenges the category of ‘nature’ itself.

Engaging with ideas through critical artistic practices can help recover multiple ecologies, and possibly rethink ideas of ‘progress’ and even reshape them.

This event was presented in collaboration with Toxic Links.