With Paribartana Mohanty

I was trained as a printmaker and specialized in silkscreen, woodcut, and etching in my B.F.A. Once I came to Delhi for my Master’s degree, I was exposed to video art and performance, what was then perceived as “new media.” In Delhi, I began to experiment in video, performance-lecture, and storytelling. As part of an artist collective, WALA, I have also been working with public performance and guided tours in Delhi. These days, I’m also working with data from social media, web-based projects, and machine learning technology.

In the socioeconomic background I come from, the question of “technology” boils down to ecosystems of access and freedom, which relate to factors like class and caste. First you enable access, which allows for scope; then there’s the possibility of expanding the technology from a human perspective. Through the VH Award grant, I immersed myself in this field and learned about AI, machine learning, and VR, but I am also interested in issues like access to electricity and mobile phones, data mining, surveillance, and the democratizing potential of social media.

I wanted to talk about the environmental crisis in Odisha, not only in scientific terms, but also by bringing in references to poetry, mythologies, and rituals. In my video Rice Hunger Sorrow (2021) I adapted a story from Mahabharata—about the death of Lord Krishna and destruction of his family and how the city of Dwarika is drowned—to a contemporary context. I brought in references from new anthropogenic disaster landscapes that are evolving on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The video was shot in Odisha, where there are recurring tsunamis, super cyclones, and land erosion constantly changing geopolitics, culture and landscapes. The work addresses the nature of technologies in suburban and rural areas of Odisha and how technology impacts climate crises today.

As I worked on Rice Hunger Sorrow while at Eyebeam, I traveled around the coast, met people in small villages, and had intense conversations about livelihood, displacement, migration, etc. I met folk Daskathia folk singers and dancers, who make music with two sticks and sing the glory of God. I collaborated with them and wrote new songs to perform.

In our meetings there was a lot of discussion about how we incorporate technology into our practices, how much of it is technological, how much of it is new media, and how to approach the social engagement process and collaboration. While I was looking at environment disaster landscapes, I had conversations about the sky, particularly in a one-on-one meeting with Kemi Sijuwade-Ukadike. This inspired me to work on my current AI forecasting project “Immersive Sky Experience.”

It’s a difficult and complex question for me. I’ve been cultivating a storytelling practice where I engage with artists, friends, and others. I try to tell stories that matter to humans—these days focusing on climate change and migration stories, suffering of marine Nolia fishers and coastal farmers—but also more broadly look at the ways in which the environment shapes human narrative. Each artist has to define for themselves how they want to engage with society, in what contexts, and what authority or responsibility they take on in the process. In the context of my practice, I want to tell stories.