From Pune’s banyan trees to comments on war, how an artist is describing world order

Monali successful her agleam and beauteous workplace successful Ghent, Belgium. (Image: Instagram/@monalimeher)

e bazaar connected which she has painted words specified arsenic zameen, killed, tears, soil, and land.

“Look astatine what is happening successful Gaza? This is connected our faces, and immoderate radical are vocal astir it, portion others are precise quiet. In the West, we are successful protestation precise often. What is happening to our humanity? The wars are not successful our power but it affects me,” says Meher.

Born successful Pune, Meher is present based successful Ghent, Belgium. She graduated from Sir J J School of Art, Mumbai, and was awarded the prestigious Rijksakademie Artists Residency, Amsterdam, successful 2000. She held her archetypal accumulation successful the metropolis successful January past year, titled “Homecoming”. In a satellite marked by migration and displacement, Meher is exploring her transportation to the spot of her origins with the contiguous accumulation astatine VHC, titled “Walking Root Route”.

Never Again(left) and Sea Sail Sell(right) from ‘Walking Root Route’ by Monali Meher. (Image credits: VHC)

The symbolic, and astir powerful, enactment of the amusement is an installation comprising a wallpaper representation of 1 of Pune’s best-known trees, the banyan, covered with reddish threads successful a mode that resembles a representation oregon recalls the ritual threads tied astir beatified trees crossed India.

“In this exhibition, I hint an intricate representation of connections betwixt root and movement, wherever basal becomes ‘route’. The banyan histrion is simply a awesome of grounding and growth, its branches eternally stretching towards some entity and earth. Each descending basal is simply a testament to resilience, to life’s cycles of renewal, and to the unseen bonds that hindrance america to our histories and landscapes,” says Meher.

The Banyan by Monali Meher astatine display. (Image: VHC)

The accumulation is simply a mode to wrestle with “the shifting borders of home, individuality and time”. “I look to the banyan histrion arsenic a keeper of stories, arsenic it has borne witnesser to generations and its roots embody some anchor and memory,” she adds.

Monali Meher’s Unknown Landscape (2019) from ‘Walking Root Route’ astatine VHC. (Image credits: VHC)

Another installation, ‘Unknown Landscape’, is an interplay of branches, bricks, ungraded and blown solid forms, among others, dispersed connected the level and conveying temporariness arsenic good arsenic resilience. “I had created ‘Unknown Landscape’ successful 2019. It was a vibrant, research-driven portion that blended earthy materials with solid sculptures created during my residency astatine Gent-Glas successful Belgium. The enactment mirrored the fluidity and impermanence of earthy landscapes, evolving silently similar a surviving organism,” she says.

In Pune, Meher utilized locally-sourced materials and recycled solid that “allowed the installation to continually alteration and invited viewers to prosecute with its evolving narrative”.

The accumulation volition spell connected till December 7.