"MRITTIKA: Redefining the Essence of Soil" | The exhibition's design, conceptualize, and curate by GHOSH

 "MRITTIKA: Redefining the Essence of Soil"

At the Ramkinkar Exhibition Hall, Information Center Siliguri. On 19th September and 20th September 2024.

GHOSH (The Curatorial Note): Through this multidisciplinary exhibition, we are trying to comprehend, interpret, and redefine the shifting landscape of women's perspective in contemporary suburban and regional India.

The exhibition explores the profound connection between women, land, and the evolving landscapes in contemporary India, particularly within smaller cities. Through evocative artworks, it highlights how female creatives actively shape and redefine their environments, navigating the tension between tradition and modernity. Their art reflects the changing socio-economic landscape, emphasizing themes of identity, belonging, and resilience.

These women, deeply tied to the land, question its utilization, benefits, and significance in a rapidly transforming society. As active participants in reshaping their worlds, they use art to transcend geographic and social boundaries. A poignant aspect of the exhibition is its focus on local tea female workers, migrant and rural workers, and upper middle-class housewives (work from home), often invisible despite their significant contributions to urban landscapes. Their resilience and agency are amplified through painting, embroidery, soil printing, installation, photography, and mixed media, portraying their strength in the face of adversity.

The exhibition also juxtaposes contemporary architecture, interior design, and digital technology with rural traditions in wall designs featuring mythical story patterns, tribal, or folk styles. This interplay between modern and traditional elements offers a layered understanding of the changing landscape; where past and present coalesce into new narratives.

By redefining the role of the artist in contemporary India, these female creatives engage with global conversations on gender equality, environmental stewardship, and socioeconomic structure, making their work both locally rooted and universally relevant. Their contributions mark an evolving chapter in contemporary Indian art as they reshape narratives of place, identity, and belonging.

In conclusion, this exhibition underscores soil as a metaphorical and literal cornerstone, with female creatives redefining India's evolving landscapes. By exploring urbanization, migration, and economic shifts through marginalized women's perspectives, it emphasizes their vital role in shaping identity and community. The integration of art and modern design challenges conventional narratives, spotlighting women's resilience and trans formative influence on their environments.

Archana Anjali Tuti

(Contemporary textile art practitioner)

(Naxalbari, Darjeeling, West Bengal

The migration rate among women according to the most recent migration survey (GOI, 2020-21)

is 47.9% for women as against 10.7% of men.

Manisha Saluja

 (Interior and land art designer)

(Siliguri, West Bengal)

Exterior digital 3D design, often commercial, intersects with land art, where technology becomes a vital tool for creating visually expressive landscapes.

Samina Tabassum

(Artist)

(Siliguri, West Bengal)

A phone conversation between REDIFF (a migrant worker) and KAFIYA (his wife)

Romee Dey

(Artist)

( Siliguri, West Bengal)

This panel of work reflects the transformation of a rural mud wall and the traditional practice of cleaning floors with cow dung.

Payel Shil

(Artist)

(Siliguri, West Bengal)

 Crafted from soil impressions collected at Terai tea plantations, this series of twelve clay dolls embodies the spirit and resilience of the women laborers who work there.

Debjani Dey

(Multidisciplinary artist)

(Kishanganj, Bihar)

These five photographs, alongside five paintings, depict the static, unvarnished realities of contemporary migrant workers—both men and women—whose presence and labor are integral to the fabric of today's urban landscapes.

 

Rozina Yeasmin

(Multidisciplinary artist)

(Siliguri, West Bengal)

 

In some remote Indian villages, residents safeguard their homes from evil spirits by adorning the exterior walls with symbolic images of simple weapons and kitchen tools, applied using traditional mouth-spray techniques.

Sabita Roy Chowdhury,

 (Artist)

 (Dhupguri West Bengal)

This piece elegantly encapsulates the serene yet industrious rhythm of rural life in the Terai and Dooars region, offering a vivid portrayal of the villagers immersed in their everyday labors. It evokes a deep connection to the land and culture, reflecting the harmony between people and their natural environment.

Proshomaa Anindya Kakoli

(Contemporary art practitioner)

(Kolkata, WB)

This work highlights how human interference not only alters the climate but also transforms vegetation into hybrid forms, where organisms develop such close interactions that they behave as if they were hybrids or mutant .

 Subhashree Bose

(Artist)

(Siliguri, West Bengal)

The rapid transformation of suburban India, coupled with diverse economic statuses, has significantly impacted women's roles and opportunities, reflecting a dynamic interplay of progress and disparity.

 Sangita Sur

(Exhibition installer)

(Siliguri, West Bengal)

The installation, using plastic chairs, represents the gathering of common people in political meetings through a very familiar object from our daily lives. These meetings temporarily transform the otherwise peaceful regional landscape into a dramatic backdrop.

Kiran Sarkar

(Artist)

(Alipurduar West Bengal)

We observe small trees confined within the narrow boundaries of charred urban bricks, symbolizing nature's resilience amid the harsh constraints of urbanization and highlighting the tension between organic growth and the oppressive man-made environment.

For the first time in a national level newspaper published from the capital Delhi, an exhibition of North Bengal took place in a wide discussion. Eminent Art Critic Sri Jai Tripathi in the Rashtriya Sahara Newspaper titled Our "MRITTIKA : Redefining the essence of soil".