Education Outreach

1996 - Present

“Artists create art. A rare few redefine what art can do.

 

Manav Gupta’s back-to-back public art projects didn’t just shift the internal architecture and interface of Indian Contemporary Art — they redrew its geo-cultural map entirely.

 

Driven by undaunted courage, deep commitment, and a vision miles ahead of its time, his work opened doors that didn’t exist before — for artists, audiences, and the culture at large.”

"Where clay lamps become rivers, earthen cups become epochs, and a single installation becomes a classroom without walls."

Critical Essay

Manav Gupta and the Architecture of Environmental Awakening

A critical essay on a sustained movement · 1996–present

There is a particular kind of stubbornness that distinguishes the visionary from the merely talented — a refusal to let the gallery wall be the final frontier of an idea. In the voluminous, philosophically charged oeuvre of Manav Gupta, born in Kolkata in 1967 and nurtured on the sylvan campus of the National Library, this stubbornness has taken the form of three unbroken decades of art-making inseparable from ecological urgency. Since his debut solo exhibition in the spring of 1996, Gupta has been elaborating a singular thesis: that the humble materials of Indian rural life — the fired earthen diya, the conical clay kullad, the modest chillum — carry within them the full weight of civilisational wisdom about sustainability, and that this wisdom can be decoded, amplified, and transmitted to the broadest possible public through the medium of contemporary installation art.

“I am simply walking the path of infinity with a life dedicated to art. If my humble drop in the ocean can help bring about the change in thinking that is so needed in today’s crass, commercialized, mechanized existence, it makes my artistic process that much more fulfilling.”

— Manav Gupta, Sculpture Magazine

This is, at first glance, a romantic proposition. But Gupta is not a romantic in the escapist sense. He is, if anything, a pragmatist of the spirit — someone who has consistently refused the luxuries of aesthetic self-enclosure.

The critical establishment has been generous, if sometimes bewildered, in its reception. “Maverick genius.” “One of India’s most erudite and versatile contemporary artists.” “Visionary.” These epithets are not entirely adequate to the task of describing what Gupta is doing. For his project is not primarily aesthetic — or rather, it is aesthetic in the deepest sense: perception, sensation, the act of fully feeling what is in front of you.

Consider the intellectual archaeology behind his masterwork series Excavations in Hymns of Clay. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s principle of object-as-idea, Gupta inverts the earthen diya — that most ubiquitous of India’s ritual objects — to transform it into a water droplet. The earthen lamp becomes the shrinking river. His tagline for the installation at the National Museum in Pretoria: “If you consider me sacred, I am the Ganga. Else I am merely water that flows.”

“I see art as a great leveller. The exchange of thoughts with thinkers, evolved humanitarians, students, and the masses has enriched my art and embellished it.”


— Manav Gupta, The Patriot

The monumental Ganga Waterfront installation at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi (2015), brought this practice to its most spectacular flowering — drawing a recorded one hundred thousand visitors. In an era when art about the environment risks becoming an aesthetic of comfortable concern, Manav Gupta’s practice is a standing rebuke to self-satisfaction. After three decades, his answer remains: make art that makes citizens.

A Movement, Measured in Environment Consciousness

1996 The First Solo & The Artist’s Statement
Gupta’s debut exhibition marks the founding gesture of the arth movement. He writes his artist’s statement rooted in rainforests, light, and ecological conscience — revisiting it annually for three decades.
1997 arth – Art for Earth Movement Launched
Gupta formally coins and launches arth — art for earth — predating the global boom in eco-art by nearly a decade.
2003 Plant a Sapling on My Canvas
The Ministry of Environment & Forests commissions Gupta to create one-minute environment films for national broadcast. He initiates ‘Plant a Sapling on My Canvas’ at his exhibitions.
2009 Copenhagen Wall of Hope
CNN commissions Gupta for the Copenhagen Climate Summit. His Wall of Hope reaches a global audience.
2010 Tree of Life Mural — Airtel Campus, Gurgaon
A five-storey-high indoor staircase mural involving thousands of non-artists. A landmark in participatory public art.
2011 Bhutan–India Friendship Mural
Commissioned by the Ministry of External Affairs. Now in the permanent collection of the BIFA Museum, Pheuntsholing.
2013 Unsung Hymns of Clay — Pretoria, South Africa
The Ditsong Museum of Natural History hosts Gupta’s Shrinking River installation. The Travelling Museum concept is born.
2015 The Ganga Waterfront — India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
100,000 footfalls. A river conjured inside a city. Dialogues at the Waterfront launches as a structured interdisciplinary engagement series.
2015–16 Ganga to Mississippi — United States Tour
Gupta delivers the President’s Lecture at MCAD, Minneapolis, building bridges between two great river civilisations through art.
2018 arth — IGNCA, Ministry of Culture, New Delhi
45×60×45 ft site-specific river installation punctuating 23 acres of heritage ground at 11 Mansingh Road. Arth Literary Festival launched.
2019 Water — The New Gold, Bhubaneswar
India’s first public art museum on water and sustainable development. Times of India notes ‘six most iconic and revolutionary art projects in India this decade.’
2020 A River Connects Us All — Cyber Hub, Gurugram
Flash installation during the pandemic era — art as resilience, ecological consciousness as solidarity.
2025 Sculpture Conference, International Sculpture Center — New York
Gupta speaks at the International Sculpture Center’s conference, advancing global dialogue on environmental public art.

The Installations as Living Classrooms

Excavations in Hymns of Clay

Travelling · India · South Africa · USA · Europe

Thousands of earthen diyas, kullads, and chillums massed into immersive landscapes of ecological metaphor. Each object is simultaneously a Vedic symbol and a contemporary argument about resource depletion and sustainable living.

The Ganga Waterfront

India Habitat Centre, New Delhi · 2015

A river conjured inside a city. 100,000 footfalls. The founding installation of the Dialogues at the Waterfront series — perhaps the most consequential work of environmental public art in contemporary India.

The Time Machine

Travelling · 2014

Clay cups as the metaphor of Time’s limitedness — evoking philosophical contemplation about how civilisations use and exhaust the resources entrusted to them.

Umbra Penumbra

Travelling

The earthen lamp and pottery mutka arranged as the fragile shadow and penumbra of One Earth suspended in the universe — a meditation on planetary vulnerability.

The Global Beehive Garden

 Worldwide

An environmental statement about biodiversity and its crucial linkages to sustainable development, using the beehive as the master-symbol of ecological interdependence.

arth at IGNCA

Ministry of Culture, 11 Mansingh Road, New Delhi · 2018

Site-specific installation punctuating 23 acres of heritage ground. Living trees incorporated into architecture. An ode to Mahatma Gandhi. Host site for the Arth Literary Festival.

Interdisciplinary Engagement

Dialogues at the Waterfront — a 25-year-old process of engaging all stakeholders of society in meaningful conversations about climate change, environment consciousness and sustainable development, with Gupta’s public art as the bedrock

Panel Discussions

Industry experts, scientists, policy makers, economists, and artists in structured dialogue — transforming art spaces into civic forums.

Arth Literary Festival

Celebrated authors, poets, and performers recite at the backdrop of large-scale installations. Curated and conceptualised entirely by the artist.

Performance & Ritual

Vedic chanting, meditation, choreography, jugalbandis — art forms that restore the contemplative dimension of ecological crisis.

Education Outreach

Site visits for school and university students, artist-led workshops, and structured learning programmes translating installation art into environmental literacy.

“Art touches hearts. My work is my way of engaging people to reflect, act, and reimagine their relationship with nature.”

— Manav Gupta · World Environment Day, The Patriot, 2025

Education Outreach Initiative

Art as the Classroom. Earth as the Curriculum.

From schoolchildren in Delhi to graduate seminars at American art colleges, Manav Gupta’s outreach programmes take the arth movement beyond the gallery and into the living spaces of learning — on-site at installations and off-site at institutions across the globe.

On-Site Installation Visits

Guided artist-led visits to Gupta’s major public installations — transforming each work into a site-responsive classroom. Students engage directly with the material intelligence of earthen objects, decoding ecological metaphor through sensory encounter.

University Lectures & Seminars

Delivered at art colleges, environmental science departments, humanities faculties, and design schools. Topics span ecological philosophy, the politics of material, sustainable art practice, Vedic wisdom and contemporary climate science.

School Engagement Programmes

Age-calibrated workshops for primary and secondary students — drawing, clay modelling, poetry, and environmental dialogue woven together. ‘Plant a Sapling on My Canvas’ programmes transform participation into living environmental art.

Interdisciplinary Research Colloquiums

Co-hosted with research institutes and universities — bringing together artists, scientists, policymakers, and educators to examine sustainable development through interdisciplinary lenses.

Travelling Museum Programmes

The arth Travelling Museum arrives at campuses as a fully constituted museum experience — installations, video rooms, prints, and artist talks — making world-class environmental art accessible to audiences far from metropolitan centres.

Arth Literary & Performance Residencies

Extended residencies where students, writers, performers, and artists co-create responses to the ecological emergency — combining poetry, music, visual art, and meditation.

United Nations SDG Alignment Workshops

Structured programmes mapping Gupta’s installations to specific UN Sustainable Development Goals — Climate Action, Life on Land, Clean Water, Responsible Consumption — translating art encounter into policy and ethical literacy.

Potter–Artist–Student Exchanges

Cross-generational learning involving the rural potters who produce the clay objects at the heart of Gupta’s practice. Students encounter craft heritage, artisanal dignity, and living knowledge systems.

Global Campus Lectures

Delivered across the USA, Europe, South Asia, South Africa, and beyond — at museums, cultural organisations, universities, and institutions. A sustained global pedagogy of environmental consciousness.

Formats for Every Institution

On-Site at Installations

I  Artist-Led Walk & Talk

Gupta personally guides groups through the installation, decoding visual and material choices. 

 

II  Immersive Study Day

Full-day programme combining installation visit, artist dialogue, clay workshop, and poetry session.

 

III  Dialogues at the Waterfront Event

Full interdisciplinary public programme — panel discussions, performances, literary recitations, meditation — with the installation as living stage and provocation.

Off-Site at Institutions

IV  Keynote Lecture

A 60-minute illustrated lecture on the arth movement — its origins, philosophy, key works, and global resonance. Suitable for university convocations, environmental conferences, and cultural institutions.


V
  Masterclass & Studio Seminar

A 3-hour intensive for art, design, and architecture students — working through the conceptual processes behind major installations, with hands-on material exercises and critical discussion.


VI
  Arth Travelling Museum

A fully constituted exhibition brought to campus — mini-installations, prints, video works, and a catalogue — accompanied by a lecture series and student outreach programme over 2–3 weeks.

Critical & Institutional Recognition

“Assembling everyday objects made by potters from across India to create huge installations that convey hope, passion, and the journey and transience of life.”


Sculpture Magazine

“India’s Soft Power.”


Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India

“One of India’s most erudite and versatile contemporary artists.”


International Institutions & Press

“To his credit, Manav has six most iconic and revolutionary art projects in India this decade.”


Times of India

“Pipped to be the next big thing in international art.”

 

Institutions & Press

“Gupta has emerged as a pioneer of environmental public art in India — admired for the quality, scale, depth, and philosophical evolution of his practice.”


The Patriot, World Environment Day, 2025

A Record of Engagement

Lectures, Talks & Educational Engagements

A record spanning three decades — from schoolrooms in Delhi to lecture halls in Minneapolis, from Cape Town museums to Nehru Centre London.

YearEngagementVenue & LocationCategory
Jan 2026Sustainability and TransformationWorldmark, T3 Airport Area, Aerocity, New Delhi, IndiaIndia
Dec 2025Guest of Honour, Global Leadership AwardsNew Delhi, IndiaIndia
2024Jury Member, Annual All India Competition — Talk & Interaction with Students on Sustainable DevelopmentJD Institute, IndiaIndia
Oct 2023Annual Gathering, International Sculpture CentreNew Jersey, USAUSA
Apr 2022VernissageDubai, United Arab EmiratesDubai
Jul 2021HORASIS India Meeting — Promoting India’s Artistic Inspiration beyond COVIDIndia (Online)Global
Nov 2020Online LectureApeejay School (Online), IndiaIndia
May 2020Interview: Artist Manav Gupta Reflects on Covid-19 through His ArtIndia Ahead, IndiaIndia
Sep 2019Interview: GuftagooDoordarshan, IndiaIndia
Nov 2018Annual Guest LectureLPU University, Punjab, IndiaIndia
Nov 2018TEDx TalkThe Shriram Millennium School, Noida, UP, IndiaTEDx & Public
Oct 2018Interview: World’s First Ever Travelling Museum for Contemporary Public ArtPunjab Kesari, IndiaIndia
Sep 2018Interview: Arth – Art for Earth by Manav GuptaTimes of IndiaIndia
Jul 2018Lecture, IGNCAMinistry of Culture, Govt of India, New DelhiIndia
Apr 2018Artist LectureGyanshree School, IndiaIndia
Mar 2018TalkBrahma Kumari Centre, New Delhi, IndiaIndia
Mar 2018Interview: An Interview with an Eminent Artist and ThinkerDoordarshan, IndiaIndia
2017Lecture, IGNCAMinistry of Culture, Govt of India, New DelhiIndia
Sep 2017Talk, WEFNew Delhi, IndiaIndia
Jun 2016TalkChhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (Prince of Wales Museum), Mumbai, IndiaIndia
Nov 2015The President’s LectureMinneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD), Minnesota, USAUSA 
Nov 2015Forecast Public LectureMinnesota, USAUSA
Jun 2013LectureLovell Gallery, Cape Town, South AfricaSouth Africa
Mar 2013LectureUniversity of Pretoria, Pretoria, South AfricaSouth Africa
Feb 2013LectureDitsong Museum of Natural History, Pretoria, South AfricaSouth Africa
Mar 2013LectureUNISA (University of South Africa), Pretoria, South AfricaSouth Africa
Oct 2011TEDx TalkLingaya University, New Delhi, IndiaTEDx & Public
Oct 2010Lecture, Institute for Cultural DiplomacyBerlin, GermanyBerlin
Sep 2010Lecture, Nehru CentreLondon, United KingdomLondon
Sep 2010Workshop on Public Engagement: Green EntrepreneurshipSan Jose State University, San Jose, California, USAUSA
2010TalkBank of India, New York, USAUSA
Aug 2007TalkBank Muscat, Muscat, OmanOman
2005Exhibition at Rashtrapati Bhavan — Artist-led Curatorial Walks with Schools & ChildrenRashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, IndiaIndia
2004‘Mass Teacher’ — School Students Invited, WorkshopIndia Habitat Centre, New Delhi, IndiaIndia
2004Talk & WorkshopMaruti Udyog, IndiaIndia
2003‘Plant a Sapling on My Canvas’ Outreach ProgrammePark Hotel, New Delhi, IndiaIndia
2002‘Plant a Sapling on My Canvas’ Outreach ProgrammeLeela Palace, Bangalore, IndiaIndia
2000TalkOffice of the Joint Secretary, HRD Ministry, Govt of IndiaIndia
1999‘India Awaiting – Timeless Metaphors of Dreams’ — Artist-led Curatorial WalkTaj Palace, New Delhi, IndiaIndia
1997‘Freedom to be Different’ — Artist-led Curatorial WalkTaj Bengal, Kolkata, IndiaIndia
1996Artist-led Curatorial WalkBirla Academy of Arts and Culture, Kolkata, IndiaIndia

3 Decades      40+  Engagements     7+ Countries       TEDx Talks

Education Outreach

GLIMPSES

Schools, colleges and universities.  Teachers, Administrators, and Principals personally written to and invited, by Manav, for a curated walkthrough of his movement on sustainable development, environment consciousness and climate change. At each project. An education outreach programme. Consisting of live lectures, talks, workshops. Hundreds of thousands of students. Since 1996.

Water

The new Gold"

- manav gupta

An intangible in-depth analysis and execution of subjects like economics, science, psychology and sustainable development. Taught in the most lasting formats of education. Via dialogue, conversation, and practical analysis, examples and exploration.

The artist’s public art thought experiments with his art’s engagement with Nature and Architecture, were executed by letting thousands of school children experience immersive and inclusive engagements with rain, river, trees, and the five elements.

College-student Interns from different disciplines were trained, briefed and divided into teams to share the learnings from the art as the artist took schools after schools for curated walks

Why
do
drugs Let's
get
drenched
in
rain

- manav gupta

The
City
Needs
The River

We
need
trees

- manav gupta

2018 - 2019

arthartforearth

Artist led walkthroughs as call to action with school students, educational institutions, colleges and universities to understand the depths of climate change and how art plays a role in education outreach and mass awareness.

Team: arth - art for earth

Gupta’s team consisted of student volunteers who were part of different fields from science, technology, engineering, business management, the arts, filmography, journalism, literary and debate societies.

President's Lecture Series: Manav Gupta

The President’s Lecture, Minneapolis College of Art & Design, Minnesota, USA | November 12th, 2015

“He’s been called the “maverick genius” by his critics. According to insiders, Manav Gupta is piped to be the next big thing in international art.

One of India’s most erudite and versatile contemporary artists, Manav Gupta has reinvented the language of clay by infusing true originality of thought and treatment in the humble produce of the potters wheel. With works sold by Christie’s, Bonham’s, Philip de Pury and in several private, corporate, and public collections, he is widely exhibited around the globe.

Recently Manav executed perhaps the two biggest solo commissioned artworks originating from India in the past few years: a world-record, five-floor, ten-thousand-square-foot mega mural at the corporate giant Airtel’s headquarters during which he invited thousands of employees to come and experience painting with him; and an Indo-Bhutan friendship mural of twenty-foot-high canvases in Bhutan.

His passion for public art is long standing—a striving of the thought and belief that embraces and explores the juxtaposition and dichotomy of the universality with the exclusively isolated, the iconic and iconoclastic.”

Forecast Public Art | Lecture, Minnesota, USA | November 11th, 2015

Annual Guest Lecture, LPU University, Punjab, India | November 19th, 2018

HORASIS, Promoting India’s Artistic Inspiration beyond COVID, Horasis India Meeting, Co Powered by CII, (Online), India | July 24th, 2021

Apeejay School, (Online) India | November 7th, 2020

Gyanshree School | April 17th, 2018

Creating Art for Earth | Manav Gupta | TEDx Youth @ The Shriram Millennium School

2020

Workshop
NamamiGange

Call to action with school students to understand the depths of climate change and how art

Apeejay School, (Online) India | June 16, 2021

Apeejay School Panchsheel Park organised an event- ‘Resplendence The Virtual Art Exhibition-Journey Through Canvas’. Mrs. Ritu Mehta, Principal Apeejay School Panchsheel Park said, “Apeejay Panchsheel Park has taken a step forward in the virtual platform by organizing an art exhibition.”

The event started with a classical dance performed by the students of Apeejay Panchsheel Park. Mr. Manav Gupta, was the chief guest of the event. He is a renowned Artist, Founder & Creative Director of Earth Foundation. He is one of the top ten contemporary artists of India. “Art augments creativity, imagination and provides opportunities to children to think and express themselves independently while developing social awareness therefore resplendence exhibits the creative work of our students using the limited resources in this unconventional time of pandemic,” the principal said.

Quoting famous Spanish painter Pablo Picasso on the artist within every child, she said, “At this difficult time, art has come as a rescue for children. They can express their emotions in the form of colors and creativity. This event is an initiative for young buds to express themselves through colours on canvas and make them bloom in an aesthetic and joyful manner.” While unveiling a painting at the event, Manav Gupta proudly said that he is a part of Apeejay family. “Picasso said about the child in an artist and an artist in a child. When we grow up, we have to retain a child in us.”

Sharing his learnings from his journey of life, he said, “From challenges and sufferings, beauty and joy, innovation evolves. When you are not comfortable and you are hungry, you then seek your own path.”
“When I was a child and used to live in Kolkata, we used to study under the street lights due to load shedding. All these struggles have given me a great insight.  It is a blessing in a way. When such challenges and tough times come, consider yourself as God’s child and a chosen one.”

“I believe that I was nurtured by nature. There is a lot to learn from nature. I always see nature as a laboratory of art,” he said. Giving suggestions to the blooming students to go outside and see trees. Have a chat with them and then sketch the trees, he said. It is such poetry and a wonderful sculpture. “My rainforest series is all about light and colour. Light is hope for me. The forests have a lot to teach us. There is a lot of darkness in the forest but there is always a light. So find it,” he said.

He asked the students to never see the obstacles, rather see what is beyond those obstacles. “Nothing can stop you if you are passionate, whatever be your challenge, face it and conquer it. Never give up.” he concluded. Further in the event, a tour of the 3D virtual exhibition was shown. The different art forms made by the students were shared before announcing the results.

Don't focus on the obstacles, see what's beyond.

“I believe that I was nurtured by nature. There is a lot to learn from nature. I always see nature as a laboratory of art

Nothing can stop you if you are passionate. Whatever be your challenge, face it and conquer it. Never give up.

“From challenges and sufferings, beauty and joy, innovation evolves. When you are not comfortable and you are hungry, you then seek your own path.”

Design Ponderings, GSSS School of Architecture , Karnataka | June 24, 2021

Kahitan Public School, 2023

The can only be one you.
Excellence
is about being
the best version
of yourself.

There is no competition with others.
Only with yourself.

Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, India | June 30th, 2016

Brahma Kumari Centre, New Delhi, India | March 7th, 2018

WEF, New Delhi, India | September 13th, 2017

Rain,
the Ganga Waterfront
along Time Machine.

India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

Rain the Ganga Waterfront along Time Machine, India Habitat Centre, 2015

Ditsong Museum of Natural History

Pretoria, South Africa

Rainforests & the Circle of Life
shrinking river on the museum floor
unsung hymns of clay
zen
the shrinking river

School, "unsung hymns of clay", Distsong National Museum of Natural History, Pretoria, South Africa | February 27th, 2013

UNISA, Pretoria

UNISA, Pretoria, South Africa | March 8th, 2013

Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD),
Berlin, Germany | October 7th, 2010

Nehru Centre,
London, United Kingdom, 2010

San Jose State University, United States, 2010

Des Moines Social Club, Des Moines, Iowa, 2010

Bank of India, New York, 2010

Tree of Life

A World Record

Mass Teacher

For artist Manav Gupta, art is about engaging with people.

"Art is not about exclusivity, it is about refining everybody's sensibilities, it's about a free exchange of ideas and imagination."

The Pioneer, 2005

Lotus Valley School, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

"I pledge ten thousand of my students to your movement on climate change and sustainable development"

Shyama China | Principal, DPS R K Puram, New Delhi

National Academy of Art (India) – Lalit Kala Academy, 2005

Rashtrapati Bhawan

Education Outreach, Artist Residency, Invited by Hon'ble former President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Maruti Udyog, Workshop on Team Building, 2004

Plant a Sapling on my Canvas

"Plant a Sapling on my Canvas", The Park Hotel, New Delhi, 2003

Plant a Sapling on my Canvas, Inaugurated by Hon'ble former Prime Minister of India, Dr. I. K. Gujral

Taking art
beyond art

HRD Ministry, Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India, 2000