As I had said in my last post, thoughts come without notice. This weekend, I met an artist-adman-photographer Prashant Godbole who unwittingly got drawn into an exhibition of reclaimed everyday material — dried roots, yellowed leaves, twigs, chisels, barks — to bring home the arid, dry, lifeless environment in cities like Mumbai, or rather in most places of the world.
Godbole, who has been working is several mediums since the last 30 years, ranging from street photography to the Hamara Bajaj ad campaign, was planning an exhibition of his paintings and sketches of conceptual art. He had booked the space months ago at Jehangir Art Gallery, like most artists do in this competitive space-crunched city. When the 56-year-old artist was toying with possibilities and ideas, something disturbing was happening in his neighbourhood. Around 50 trees were cut randomly near the famous Siddhivinayak temple in Prabhadevi where he resides; a public park in his vicinity was decimated one day; the trees on the main road leading to Shivaji Park were also gone a little later. Godbole was hurt by the growing lack of greenery in his locality, thanks to the construction of the underground metro railway. He wanted to react to the lifeless brown around him, and also wanted to see if he, as an artist, could bring back the green in some way.
He started working, three months ago, on a set of images that convey the barren city which different forces are contributing to. He juxtaposed nails, knobs, scrapped plywood, images of leafless trees and extravagant furniture, a discarded saw, twigs collected from a beach walk and much more from the everyday realm. His Samsara was presented at the Jehangir for six days, in which he invited the city to have a look at its collective unfolding future. His human and bird forms indicated the harm inflicted by the human race on itself. “By destroying the habitats of several species, we are doing no good to ourselves. In fact, we are writing, and speedily so, our own obituary, ” he comments.
In 22 artworks, wooden-framed and themed in black-white-brown, Prashant Godbole underlines the reasons why all of us need to oppose mindless construction activity and mega infrastructure projects, floated in the name of progress and globalisation. He shows the extent of damage. His Samsara urges us to take care of our ecology, to stop the “dance of death,” even if it is a bit too late.
Godbole’s aim is not just to sensitise us to the gory future. He wants to do more, which is why the proceeds of the exhibition are going to Grow Trees non-governmental group which ensures tree plantations are done in consonance with the ecosystem. “I am happy that they take the Gram Panchayats into confidence, so that wrong trees don’t take root,” he told this blogger.
More than anything else, Godbole is happy that Samsara has generated healthy interactions. Children, adults, tourists, city dwellers, collegians, conservationists, all types of individuals have visited and commented on the exhibits. “I am happy that my thought was received so warmly. Navwari-clad women getting off from the Mumbai Darshan buses at Kala ghoda have visited Samsara, so have children on the south Mumbai excursions, and so have entrepreneurs selling off-beat ideas. The exhibits have given rise to conversations centering around on the lack of trees. That traction is invaluable.”
Friends, it is the thought that counts. As I unpack my thought haversack, I look forward to sharing more. I end with a visual that captures artist Prashant Godbole’s thoughts-in-the-making while he was building his Samsara exhibition! I wish such creative restorative-yet-provoking spaces to all of us!
The Thought Haversack 