Artist Monali Meher explores displacement, belonging, migration and the relationship between people and their surroundings in her latest exhibition, ‘Walking Root Route’, at Latitude 28 in New Delhi. The exhibition brings together sculpture, installation, drawing, textile, photography, and performance to examine these themes.
Presented by curator and gallerist Bhavna Kakar, the exhibition features works from Meher’s practice spanning more than two decades. The show focuses on two closely connected ideas — the “root” and the “route”.
The idea for the exhibition comes from a banyan tree. The Belgium-based artist, who was born in Pune and grew up in Mumbai, recalls seeing banyan trees during her visits to her grandmother’s home in Pune. Their roots and branches would leave her pondering over how people remain connected to their origins even as they move across places. Meher’s experiences of travel have also influenced the exhibition. Her movement between countries and cultures became part of her artistic practice.
Walking itself has long been an important part of Meher’s practice. In her performances, she physically traces routes, often involving audiences along the way. This is also reflected in the footprints painted into her works, suggesting movement and journey.
The use of red thread to trace paths and connect pieces of fabric is also noticeable throughout the works. According to Meher, red can carry a multitude of meanings—from love and hate to violence, blood and auspiciousness—which is why she frequently incorporates the colour into her works. Additionally, the thread, in her works, hints at “movement, continuity and migration.”
As you enter the exhibition, you are welcomed by a jute textile work, ‘Entangled’, resembling a banyan tree. Red stitches run across the fabric, perhaps hinting at nostalgia and memory, while also appearing to trace a path across the work. Another textile work features different pieces of fabric stitched together, bearing photographs and paintings of banyan trees and leaves.
Material stories
The show also looks closely at the relationship between natural materials and the environment. One of its important works, ‘Unknown Landscape’, uses materials such as sand, bricks, turmeric, coal, soil and twigs alongside melted and blown glass.
Meher says the use of material from the immediate surroundings is an important part of her practice. The work also brings together themes of personal, cultural and environmental associations. Turmeric, for instance, connects to food, medicine and rituals in India, while neel (or indigo), the blue pigment once used to whiten clothes, carries memories of earlier generations. Coal, meanwhile, connects Meher’s practice to questions of climate change and environmental damage.
This installation also references the Yamuna. By using sand from its riverbank, Meher brings the environmental realities of Delhi’s pollution into the exhibition. Meher’s works also touch on themes of war, violence and displacement.
Art and belonging
For Kakar, the connection between material and meaning is key to understanding Meher’s work. She says the exhibition revolves around the concept of “root learning to become route”. She notes that a root may suggest origin and inheritance, while a route involves departure, uncertainty and change. Meher’s work brings the two together. She adds: “What Monali's work insists upon, and what I find most moving about it, is that these two are not opposites fighting for territory. The route does not destroy the root, it educates it. It teaches the root to travel without dying.”
This concept becomes especially relevant in Meher’s understanding of home. Now based in Belgium, she notes her relationship with India has not disappeared with distance. Instead, she carries her sense of home through language, memories, experiences and her work. “Home is something you carry with yourself,” she says. For her, it is not a fixed place but a feeling — somewhere one can be present, create and connect. Living in Europe, she says, creating art has become a way to connect with others, especially when “it’s very difficult to use the words”.