When Varthur Lake caught fire in 2019, it became an unforgettable reminder of the environmental cost of unchecked urbanisation. Today, that image has travelled from India to the United Nations headquarters in New York, where Bengaluru-based self-taught artist Namita Kulkarni’s painting forms part of Colonialism and the Climate Crisis, an exhibition exploring the links between colonialism, climate justice and human rights. “I was researching Bengaluru’s water issues, and was shocked to find that Varthur Lake has caught fire a few times. It’s pretty dystopian, just the idea of a lake catching fire. I felt that this is something that needs to be screamed about from rooftops, and art is one way to do that,” says Kulkarni, for whom the image of a burning lake has become a powerful way to showcase society’s misplaced priorities.
The exhibition, on display until July 10, invites viewers to rethink the systems that have shaped the modern climate crisis, and is solely about encouraging audiences to question long-held narratives about history, progress and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Showcasing stories rooted in Bengaluru before an international audience was an intentional choice. She hopes viewers recognise that environmental crises are inseparable from larger histories of inequality and exploitation. “To me, it represents how misplaced our priorities are as a culture, how much we’ve lost the plot and how far we have strayed from the role of custodians of this planet. It really speaks to how much we prioritise profit over life,” Kulkarni points out.
At the core of the UN exhibition of her seven artworks is an attempt to slowly bring up conversations around climate change beyond carbon emissions and technological fixes. “Way too often, we see the climate crisis framed as a matter of carbon emissions that we can compensate for or offset our way around. The colonial dimensions of the climate crisis are completely overlooked,” Kulkarni says. Through the series, she seeks to make explicit the connection between colonialism and the climate crisis while foregrounding indigenous perspectives that are often excluded from dominant narratives, adding, “All of our major systems - economy, military, health have profit at the centre, not life. What would be under a different paradigm, where life is at the centre, not profit? That is a question I’d like viewers to take with them.”
(To view the exhibited artworks, visit icaad.ngo/colonialism-climate-artivism )