Monday, May 3, 2021


OXYGEN

Oxygen | Site specific Installation & Performance Collaboration with School children's 2018 | Narrative Movements International Artist's Residency Suri, Kolkata INDIA 

Materials – Spade, Deepak Clay, oil and Cotton






Save trees

Title: Oxygen – A Breath of the Future
Art Installation and Performance by Chiman Dangi
Location: Narrative Movements International Artist Residency, Suri, India
Medium: Clay lamps, soil, cotton, spades, school children


Concept Note:

In a quiet forest grove, young children—dressed in school uniforms, eyes filled with curiosity—gently embrace trees. Their small arms stretch around ancient trunks, becoming symbols of tomorrow’s guardians. This image becomes a living sculpture, a performance breathing life into the urgent cry for environmental awareness. The work is aptly titled “Oxygen”—a metaphor for trees as the lungs of our planet and children as its future breath.

Inspired by the powerful story of Amrita Devi and the Khejarli Massacre of 1731, where over 363 Bishnoi villagers sacrificed their lives to protect sacred Khejri trees, this installation becomes an intergenerational echo of that resistance. By involving schoolchildren, the artist passes this spirit forward—reminding us that the fight for nature’s survival must begin in the hearts of the youngest.

The ground installation, made with earthen lamps (deepaks), cotton, and clay, forms floral mandala-like patterns reminiscent of sacred rituals. Each lamp, lit or unlit, represents both potential and fragility—the light that can shine only if we nurture what gives us life.

Spades (fawdas), symbols of labor and earth connection, are not used to destroy but to shape—signaling a reclaiming of tools for protection rather than extraction.


Narrative:

Children are not merely participants—they are witnesses and heirs to the earth. By hugging the trees, they reenact a resistance born centuries ago in Rajasthan’s deserts. Their innocence adds weight to the gesture. Their smiles, their silence, their shadows among the trees—these are acts of defiance against deforestation, pollution, and the forgetting of indigenous wisdom.

This art installation invites viewers to pause. To breathe. To remember that Oxygen is not free—it is gifted by the earth, and it is our duty to protect its givers.


Message:

This is not just art. It is a call to conscience.
A reminder that what we plant in children’s hearts will bloom in forests or vanish in flames.
“Oxygen” is not just what we inhale—
It is what we must protect, nurture, and pass on.





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