In late 2019, artist Rithika Merchant began work on a new series themed on climate change. The idea was to explore how Earth changed after the advent of humans, and how this process has sped up in recent years. “The series looked at what we will be left with after the anthropocene/holocene, and what we can learn from the simpler times before,” says Merchant. Through 2020, the pandemic added another layer of meaning to the series, which was exhibited at TARQ, Mumbai, earlier this year. It got embedded with a certain longing for a not-so-distant past when life was “normal”. “I was in Mumbai when the nationwide lockdown was announced in March last year,” says the artist, who shuttles between Barcelona, Spain, and Mumbai. “I was staying with my parents and living in the bedroom in which I grew up. So one ended up ruminating over memories, and there was a yearning to be one with nature again.” This is when she created Saudade, a work inspired by the Portuguese word for deep longing and melancholia, as part of the series.
> read more
Articles
