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The Yamuna Project
Focussing on the theme of eco-art, this residency brought together the work of two artists, Atul Bhalla and Ravi Aggarwal, who have had years of engagement with the Yamuna. The Yamuna Project resulted in the production of one public project that allowed for greater audience participation as well as individual projects through which the river's numerous ecologies were creatively explored.
About this programme
The 2007 opening residency at KHOJ focussed on the theme of eco-art. It hosted two Delhi based artists, Atul Bhalla who works with sculpture, performance, and photography and is also a teacher, and Ravi Agarwal, a photographer and Director of the environmental NGO Toxic Link. Both artists have had several years of engagement with the river Yamuna in Delhi as a water source and ecological entity.
Bhalla and Agarwal think of the river and its water in a conceptual sense and, in their work, relate it to a personal reflection of the self and the changing city; they are equally concerned with the strained ecological relationship of the citizens to the degraded river and how it has become insignificant in the people’s imagination over time.
Through the residency, one joint public project was proposed allowing for large audience participation as well as individual projects. By way of these, the artists hoped to explore the multiple ecologies of the river and the self in the context of the contemporary. In the words of the artists: they will eat, drink and drown in the river in order to regain the self.
