Audiovisual installation // Sculpture, soundscape, poetry
2025

I wanted to build an unlikely shrine and an unlikely chant for an unlikely goddess.⁣
What happens when we separate a ritual from its socio-religious ties? We are left with an act of community integration, a fabulation that creates a shared space to celebrate what a people hold dear. This artwork explores inventive ritualism to foster ecofeministic practices. The symbolism is inspired from the ancient Indian ceremonial practice of tying the Kalava, a sacred red thread, around trees as an act of protection, fostering ecological mindfulness and spiritual connection with nature The work presents ritualism as a praxis of resistance, exploring the female body’s bond with the tree as defiance of patriarchal power structures to create a neo-myth of decolonial ecofeminism. It exposes the stereotypical imagery of feminine strength as a nucleus of violation by creating an unlikely goddess and placing her at the centre of a speculative shrine made of dead twigs interwoven with a red thread. It questions the sanctity of preservation and autonomy of the female body. The space is immersive, inviting you to participate in a ritual of listening. The soundscape creates a prayer-like chant of bilingual feminist poetry in English and Bengali. It is high time to reimagine our myths, redesign practices of shared living, fabricate rituals that defy mainstream power structures, and uphold mutualistic belief-systems that foster interconnected, interdependent growth nourishing the ecosystem we inhabit.
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