Museum Lab
arth – art for earth
Public art | Sustainable Development | Climate Change
Time | Water | River | Rain | Rainforest | Trees
Thought Experiments
environment consciousness
innovations
"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, if it can add a dab of spiritual context to the world as it takes art and culture as a vehicle of change across boundaries, it makes my artistic process that much more fulfilling." - Manav Gupta
Sculpture Magazine
art |
taking art beyond art
"To his credit, Manav has six most iconic and revolutionary art projects in India this decade."
TIMES OF INDIA | Artist creates India's first public art museum on water and sustainable development | Jun 7, 2019
2010-2019
THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS CONCEPTUALISED & EXECUTED:
Ideas ahead of time. Inclusive. Immersive.
the earthen lamp
is woven in the cultural-religious fabric of India from time immemorial. This humble small clay bowl called the diya is shaped by poor potters who keep them in large numbers by the road side in heaps for selling. Sometimes beside garbage dumps or beside sewage drain they have a nondescript existence till the time they are bought home by people.Once home, only at the time of worship, they are used as a tool at the altar.Then something dramatic happens. The same humble small bowl of clay that had no meaning, no significance or existence in the human pshyche suddenly turns into the medium of conveying the desires of the soul. Sacred as soon as when placed at the alter.Priests say you do not need to purify these mud bowls by sprinkling of Holy water of the Ganges because it is made of earth and is pure.Oil ispoured in it. A wicker lit. And it assumes the status of the Holy Grail carrying one‘s prayers of the soul to the Gods and our spirit awakens. Once the prayer ends, the earthen lamp is discarded again to be immersed in the Ganges. Taken for granted. Annointed when needed. Only revered when in use. And after its purpose is served, discarded and thrown and another one bought to serve the desires of the soul yet another day. Its life is strange as the way of the world and the circle of life. Like the unsung hymns of clay.
Having been a part of the religious rituals many years and having grown up and lived this practice in India for years this whole symbolic circle of life has deeply affected the artist to use earthen lamps diyas as a metaphor to explore and raise questions on environment consciousness. And also about the very glaring issue of how perception and context interplay each other. How men and objects are made to traverse responses and the destiny of reactions based on usage, perception, context and situation.
Using the earthen lamp as a metaphor, Manav explores issues of environment consciousness. We recognise and respect earth only when we use its resources for our use without reverence.
in the hands of the artist
a metaphor for earth
inverted
into a droplet of water
into a droplet of water
The artist has also taken his analogy from the Ganges. The sacred river of India has dedications that have always poured on it in many ways.The opening lines of the lyrics of an old song from an Indian movie speak about the dichotomy of perceptionIt conveys, ‘ if you believe, then I am sacred, or else mere water that flows…’ Given today’s world of current complex issues of treatment and perception of women as well as earth (referred to as mother earth in many quarters of Indian spirituality ) the artist draws a cross spectrum reference of eroding human values. The pollution of the rivers, the shrinking of water and its availability and such other climate change issues have been in the artist’s ethos of work since beginning.