As part of the Digital Delhi Conclave 21 on Climate Action for a Sustainable Urban Future, the ‘Climate Chabootra: Grounding the Green Hashtag’—an art exhibition on the harmful effects of climate change—was set up at the R&D Building at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi Campus, Okhla Phase III, on Saturday. Organised by IIIT-Delhi in collaboration with Aapti Institute—a research institution that studies the intersection between technology and society—in Bengaluru, this one-day exhibition featured artworks on environment and climate change by artists Gigi Scaria, Atul Bhalla, and Ravi Agrawal. Apart from this, one noticed a striking poster, with the words ‘Grounding the Green Hashtag’, placed on the floor at a corner in the building lobby. This poster was designed by Aafreen Fathima, an illustrator from Chennai, and encourages visitors to craft their own hashtag.
The concept behind this exhibition revolved around the need to feature non-textual mediums of communicating about climate change. “Many communities, which talk about the idea of climate change, use art as a medium. This influenced us to an extent,” mentioned Sarayu Natarajan, founder of Aapti Institute. “People notice art. The wall features a number of climate issues that people might supposedly think are small right now but will have a huge effect on our climate in the future. I hope looking at these issues in the form of art will make people realise the magnitude of it,” shared Fathima. Members of Ecolab will be taking the artwork to schools and colleges around Delhi-NCR.
An inclusive approach
Focusing their research in Delhi and Bengaluru, Climate Chabootra, a two-year-old project, looks at the idea of how the present generation uses social media and hashtags as a way of creating awareness about climate action. Aasim Khan, assistant professor, IIIT-Delhi said, “We noticed that in the southern parts of the country, the hashtags are more grounded in their regional languages as compared to North India, especially in Delhi, where these are usually in English and cater to only a specific part of the populace.”
Grounding the Green Hashtag is, therefore, an attempt to develop a more inclusive approach to climate action.