'The Unseen Forest' was a visual art performance, curated by me in association with Ghare Baire studio. Conceptualised around the theme of climate change, the show was a collaboration between visual artists, musicians, an elocutionist and most important, a willing audience. It was an attempt to convey the need for environment conservation, by highlighting the impending doom and destruction.
At the heart of the show was a visual art installation that we set up in the middle of the courtyard at Ghare Baire studio. Together with my visual art collaborators, we painted the forest installation through the day long show. This labour of love built upto a culmination with an intention to generate a shock affect, as we went on to destroy what took us hours to create, in a mere few minutes. As the accompanying live music and elocution reached a crescendo, the installed forest slowly vanished, having been methodically erased by us.
‘Whale in the pond’s’ music from their album ‘Dofon’ provided the most fitting backdrop for our dramatic installation. The songs spoke about an unbalanced world that had lost its focus and their performance stitched together, this show of multiple disciplines. The day’s theme was a perfect setting for a reading of Amitav Ghosh's ‘Jungle Nama’, the folklore that talks about the necessity of setting boundaries to maintain the balance between man and Nature. Actor & Elocutionist Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee beautifully brought out the subtle nuances as he read from the book, in tandem with the performance.
This show was designed as an immersive experience for the audience. They were invited to go on a trail walk through the galleries of the studio and identify paintings from clues given to them. They were also encouraged to create their own drawings, taking inspiration from these exhibits, which they then went on to pin up on the forest installation. In a small way, the audience also went through the process of creation and destruction like our installation.