The 2021 Konkan floods did more than alter Rohit Suresh Varekar’s artistic practice—they transformed the way he understood home. Watching ancestral houses collapse under relentless rain and landslides, the Sawantwadi-based artist realised that what was being lost was not merely architecture, but an entire repository of memory. Those questions form the basis of Umbara: At an Ancestral Threshold, Varekar’s solo exhibition at Gallerie Nvya in New Delhi. It brings together reclaimed doors, beams and pillars salvaged from collapsed mud houses across the Konkan, transforming them into sculptures and installations. At its centre is an immersive installation of weathered double-panel doors inscribed with ecological warnings inspired by environmentalist Madhav Gadgil.
Growing up in Konkan, Varekar had always seen its traditional homes as inseparable from the landscape. During the Covid lockdown, as floods ravaged villages across the region, that landscape changed forever. The destruction prompted him to collect doors, beams, and pillars salvaged from collapsed homes—not as relics frozen in time, but as materials that still had stories to tell. “I felt these materials wanted to converse,” the 27-year-old says. That conversation lies at the heart of his practice.
Alongside reclaimed timber, drawing, and wax occupy an equally personal place in his visual vocabulary. The wax recalls the colourful crayons of childhood, introducing moments of innocence into works that grapple with ecological collapse and displacement. Although often described as a sculptor, Varekar sees his role as extending beyond making objects. “I see myself somewhere in between,” he says. His sculptures function as conversations between past and present, where architecture, ecology, and lived experience continue to coexist long after the original structures have vanished. That dialogue inevitably leads to questions of migration. Across Konkan, ancestral homes increasingly stand abandoned as younger generations leave in search of education and employment.
“In my work, abandoned houses become symbols of both physical and emotional displacement,” Varekar says. “Environmental pressures like floods, landslides, and ecological degradation make these landscapes even more fragile.” The environmental concerns running through his work owe much to Gadgil. “Gadgil’s writings made me think beyond environmental loss as a scientific issue,” Varekar says. “They helped me understand that it also affects culture, memory, architecture and everyday life.” He incorporates Gadgil’s observations into installations alongside reclaimed doors and architectural remnants. Varekar continues to live and work in Sawantwadi, resisting the assumption that artists must migrate to metropolitan centres to find their voice. “Being rooted in the Konkan allows me to remain closely connected to the landscape, vernacular architecture and local communities,” he says. He believes that remaining embedded within his environment has strengthened rather than narrowed his artistic language.
In an age when climate change is redrawing both landscapes and lives, Varekar’s reclaimed doors and weathered beams become thresholds inviting viewers to pause before crossing them and consider what is lost when homes disappear, and what survives in the memories their fragments continue to hold.
When & Where
Umbara: At an Ancestral Threshold; Till August 31; Gallerie Nvya in New Delhi