Delhi is all set to witness the coming together of passionate environmentalists and artists, who are putting up a combined effort to save and create awareness about the city’s most revered and equally defiled water body — the Yamuna.
As part of the “Germany-India 2011-12: Infinite Opportunities” initiative, the city of Hamburg in Germany and the Goethe Institute/Max Mueller Bhavan in New Delhi, have come together to organise the Yamuna-Elbe Public Art Outreach project. This programme will be organised along the banks of the Yamuna for citizens of the capital city.
This twin-city public art and outreach project, scheduled to be held from November 9 to 20 at the Golden Jubilee Park, claims to be an eco-friendly endeavour with the use of solar energy for power requirements, electrically-operated vans for transport and use of recyclable material for production of artworks.
This unique collaborative project, which is aimed at creating ecologically-sustainable rivers in cities, will be co-curated by Till Krause, a well-known land artist from Hamburg, and Ravi Agarwal, acclaimed Indian artist and practicing environmentalist.
Mr Agarwal says, “We need to rethink ecology and rivers in the 21st century where human sustainability has become a key question. Art is the framework, which allows diverse ideas and imaginations to co-exist and helps in repositioning people in relation to nature. A river is not only ‘polluted’ or ‘clean’, but is a beautiful landscape of the city, with many layers of aesthetic, social and political meaning.”
Both the Elbe and the Yamuna are central to Hamburg and Delhi’s futures respectively. According to a news report on MSN, scientific data proves that the level of industrial pollution in the Yamuna is nearly 13 times the permissible limit. “The Elbe is not as polluted as the Yamuna, although it was also very polluted once upon a time. However, that contamination was caused by the industries around it and not so much by human sewage. But the pollution level considerably decreased after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 when the industries in
the eastern countries, like Czechoslovakia, were shut down,” says German artist Nana Petzet, one of the participants in the project.
Apart from creating public awareness on river sustainability, the project also aims to encourage artistic exchange between Indian and German artists. The sculptural installations of Atul Bhalla, Asim Waqif, Gigi Scaria and Sheba Chhachhi will be showcased, most of which will be created on site.
Bhalla, who has been working for the cause of rivers especially the Yamuna since 1998, says, “In the Yamuna-Elbe public art initiative, I draw my inspiration from an episode in The Mahabharata. During the last year of their exile, the Pandavas once stopped by a river to quench their thirst. But just when they were about to, they were surprised to hear a voice from the river speaking to them. ‘Answer my questions before you drink,’ the voice said. And it asked the Pandavas 54 questions, like ‘What will be my defeat?’ ‘What is my space?’ ‘What is my cause?’ I was intrigued by this incident narrated in the epic. Why should Ved Vyas want the questions to come from a water body? What exactly is the river trying to tell us?”
Explaining the premise of his work, Bhalla says, “I have taken 12 out of the 54 questions and reformulated them for contemporary times. These questions deal with abundant waste thrown into rivers, the near-ecological catastrophe and most importantly the position of cities on rivers, seas and estuaries, where rising water levels are wreaking havoc, and our efforts to ‘control’ the water/river,” he adds.
Bhalla has explored the physical, historical, spiritual and political significance of water to the urban environment through different mediums like sculptures, paintings, installations, videos, photographs, etc. “I showcased my work in the form of a performance in Hamburg, while in Delhi it will be through sculptures,” he explains.
Delhi-based installation artist Sheba Chhachhi’s work for the project is Black Waters Will Burn.
“My work is partially based on mythology. I will work on a 14th century hymn of praise to the Yamuna, in which she is described as a beautiful river. This is where the irony comes in. You see, people still worship the Yamuna as a goddess, but they forget her material body. The level of toxins in the river is alarming. By using text and video, I will show the dangerous future that the Yamuna faces,” Chhachhi elaborates.
Meanwhile, apart from Petzet, other German artists participating in the event include Jochen Lempert, Michael Clegg, Martin Guttmann and Ines Lechleitner.

The project will be held from November 9 to 20 at
the Golden Jubilee Park