NAYA ANJOR

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Anant Art is pleased to announce Naya Anjor, a group exhibition curated by Arushi Vats welding distinct artistic approaches that are keeping vigil against the extractive occupations of mountains, forests and rivers in South Asia. Inspired by a song by Faguram Yadav, a poet at the heart of Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, the exhibition presents collective imaginaries, narrative flights and stories of resistance struggles as vital sources against anthropocenic nihilism and will be on view from 2 December – 12 December 2022 at Center for Contemporary Arts, Bikaner House. “Naya Anjor”, which translates to a “new ray” harks to the promise of Octavia Butler’s radical assertion: “There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.”

Artists: Aban Raza, Anirudh Shaktawat, Anupam Roy, Atul Bhalla, Babu Eshwar Prasad, Bhimanshu Pandel, Birender Yadav, Dhara Mehrotra, Digbijayee Khatua, Garima Gupta, Gipin Varghese, Laxmipriya Panigrahi, Madhu Das, Naphisabiang Khongwir, Navjot Altaf, Noor Ali Chagani, Paribartana Mohanty, Prabhakar Pachpute, Probir Gupta, Raj Kumar, Ravi Agarwal, Ronny Sen, Sarasija Subramanian, Shambhavi Singh, Soghra Khurasani, Tushar Joag, Vikrant Bhise, Vivan Sundaram

When the pandemic hit hard in India the government without thinking much about the repercussions and preparations decided to do a complete lockdown. The tragedy that unfolded was witnessed by the whole world. Further without managing the medical system properly the state and the ruler were only concerned about how to utilize the tragedy to build the public image through advertising and campaigns. Far yet very near to these happenings I was holed up in my studio and was also tested positive for corona. It’s at the same time I happened to rent a studio space in the basement of my residence.

Like many others, I too wanted to react to this unprecedented shutdown and complete stalling of life in some ways. But I wasn’t happy to reproduce the sensationalised media images in other artistic mediums (which was of course how we came to know what was happening). Rather I decided to go back to my memory and thought of looking at the people who have been historically at the receiving end whenever any such tragedies or calamities unfolded. Though it was imperative to react to the immediate, I was also inclined to think or stretch the event historically.

Historically the labouring classes/castes have been the worst affected whenever any calamities broke. Without any support, systems to cushion their existence the oppressed suffer more from the conditions of their poverty than from the immediate threat of the disease. This can be glaringly seen in the events that unfolded during the lockdown and the aftermath. While the privileged too mourned their departed due to disease, the impoverished