Ravi Agarwal

Born 1958 in New Delhi, India Lives and works in New Delhi, India Ravi Agarwal combines social documentary and environmental activism in his photographs and films. As the founder of the NGO Toxics Link, one of India’s leading environmental, non-profit organisations, the artist’s resistance to ecological and environmental depletion add an urgent element to his films and photographs and becomes a medium in itself for his activism. Emerging in the first flush of India’s booming economy in the 1990s, Ravi Agarwal balances his awareness of globalisation and rapid urban development while also negotiating cultural tradition. Often dedicating years to photograph a project, returning repeatedly to the same area, or travelling with groups of migrant works, Agarwal’s images of the river, street, labour and work provide an incisive socio-political commentary on the so-called informal sector of India's economy. Have you seen the flowers on the river, 2007, a series of 6 photographs and a video produced during an eco-art residency, is a personal and social documentation on New Delhi’s rapidly changing landscape, focusing on the Yamuna Pushta River. Charting the steady demise of the river and the communities sustained by its waters, Agarwal’s photographs trace the journey of the marigold flowers sown on the river bed through a system of exchange that is the basis of livelihood for local communities. As the land becomes precious for its per-acre real estate value, the marigold fields and the people whose lives are inextricably bound to the river are threatened. In the contemporary urban environment, Agarwal’s images lament the reduction of resources; their value is judged on their ‘usefulness’, based on what can be offered both economically and politically. At another level, the river is intimately linked to the cyclical idea of life, death and rebirth, through the narrative of the marigold returning back to the water, which bore it. The video work Machine, 2007, also captures the contradictions inherent in the contemporary urban culture. Agarwal reflects on how the poor are ‘thrown out of their homes in the city and are ferried back in as household labour. Like a relentless machine, ceaselessly going on and on.’ In contrast to the brightly coloured images of the marigold fields, the video of the machine moving in an endless loop of whirs and clicks creates a sense of dislocation and alienation. The absence of human figures stain these images with a sense of regret that comes with uninhibited urban development. In Agarwal’s series of photographs Urbanscapes, 2008, the buildings and spaces that have become marked for demolition are presented in stark contrast to the slick media images of India’s developing cities. Agarwal transforms these ruined structures into areas of hope or as an alternative future by infusing the dark grey interiors with small clippings of pastoral landscapes whether its through the rich reds of the bougainvillea trees or the bright oranges of the marigold fields. More recently, Agarwal’s work has focused on explorations of the self. Shroud, 2007, is a series of twenty-four self-portraits, in which Agarwal is photographed repeatedly at different times of the day by the riverbank, encased in a clear plastic shroud. These images examine his relation to the river not only as a site of exchange and a place of mysticism but also as a lifeline to a city of 15 million people, articulating his desire for unity with both the environment and the self to create a ‘personal ecology.’   Leila Hasham

Ravi Agarwal The Shroud, 2007