DHAN  "Call of the Soil"

 Installation  Artwork: Chiman Dangi 

Materials : 7 Brass Plates, 

Location: Art Junction Residency Udaipur 2024

This installation is a tribute to soil, memory, and labor. The red earth placed in brass plates is not mere clay—it symbolizes the toil of our ancestors, our deep-rooted bond with the land, and the cultural traditions that shaped us.

Nowadays, whenever people gather for weddings or festivals, conversations often revolve around wealth and extravagance—“He spent this much,” “She wore so much gold.” As the son of a farmer and an artist, I often listen silently... but within me, a different memory stirs.

I am taken back to my childhood, to the early mornings before Holi, when my mother and sisters Women in the neighborhood would go out to collect yellow or red clay. That soil, which was used to plaster our homes, was revered like jewelry. For us, that earth was true wealth—the same earth from which life grows, which turns to gold in a farmer’s hands.

This installation holds that memory alive.

It is the "Call of the Soil"—a symbolic and emotional reflection on what true wealth means. It reminds us that the land is not just a resource, but something worthy of gratitude and respect.

It asks: is wealth only money, or also the very soil that gives us life?

With time, the value of things changes—

but have we forgotten the worth of soil?

 

 The Divine Vision

Site specific Installation Art By Chiman Dangi

Residency Period: 15 September 2024 – 15 October 2024

 Location: Land Art Museum, Hestøya, 7818 Lund, Norway 

As visitors walk the forested path, they arrive at a clearing—a quiet threshold—where The Divine Vision stands, a stone stele encircled by hand-built dry stack walls. Shaped as a trapezoidal prism, these walls are composed of stones sourced from Hestøya Island itself. They echo across continents, symbolically linking this land in Norway with Khejarli, India—sites bound by a shared reverence for nature and resistance to its destruction.

Along the path, eyes—simple, two-dimensional forms once used by ancient cultures to observe the world—are etched into stones. But here, these carved eyes reverse the gaze: nature watches us. Embedded both in the approach and within the stele itself, they are a solemn reminder that the Earth is bearing witness, questioning whether humanity will uphold its duty to protect and sustain the resources that sustain us in return.

Though built solely from organic materials, the walls surrounding The Divine Vision represent the psychological and societal barriers we construct to distance ourselves from the natural world. The installation calls attention to this illusion of separation—challenging the belief that we have risen above the ecological web to which we still belong.

In this sacred space, one is invited to pause, reflect, and remember the fragility of nature’s bounty. The stillness becomes a prayer—linking Hestøya in 2024 with Khejarli in 1730, where 363 lives were given to protect the sacred Khejri trees. Just as that sacrifice planted the seed of the global environmental movement, this stele offers continuity: a temple to the Earth, across time and geography.

Two places. One vision. Eternal vigilance. https://www.artworldnow.com/2024/10/interview-renata-maiblum-tells-us-about.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com     land art

THIRD EYE 

THIRD EYE (Performance art) by Dr. Chiman Dangi

 Duration 35 minutes

Material-  Red clay, lime, Waste paper Plates.

Cureted by Asso.Prof. Umesh Nayak

 Uartan Conclave 9-12 December 2023

Place – Utkal Cultural University Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.

In the heart of Utkal University of Culture lies a pond—once a source of reflection and renewal—now choked with garbage, neglected by both time and people. The "Third Eye" performance by Chiman Dangi confronts this silence, this decay, through a deeply symbolic and sensory intervention.

Moved by the painful condition of the university’s pond and the apathy of society toward environmental degradation, visual and performance artist Chiman Dangi initiated a live performance that urges collective awakening. Titled "Third Eye," the piece metaphorically invokes the divine eye of wisdom and destruction—an eye that sees beyond appearances and reacts against rising wrongs.

Dangi appeared wearing silver paper plates marked with symbolic third eyes, placed on his body and over his head—an embodiment of awareness, vigilance, and cosmic judgment. As he moved silently around the garbage-laden site, he used red clay pigment and lime powder to highlight discarded waste, symbolically marking it as a wound upon the Earth—too often ignored by the public eye.

Amid the foul odor of dumped waste, Dangi began by highlighting the garbage with earthy tones, performing amidst the filth that has become normalised. He also painted multiple eyes across his body—turning his skin into a canvas of perception—to draw attention toward the forgotten filth. The performance was documented through live videography, which he intends to share on public platforms to raise broader awareness and provoke dialogue.

“We conduct rituals to summon the rain god during droughts,” Dangi said. “But once rain blesses us, we don’t care to preserve water bodies like ponds and lakes. We know plastic is harmful, yet we continue to use it. We’ve become blind to our own destruction.”

The performance was not just symbolic—it was a call to conscience. Dangi’s third eyes watched and responded, tracing the toxic buildup with artistic rituals. With each step, he became both seer and nature, confronting ignorance, sorrow, and the slow violence of pollution.

“In ancient scriptures, when sin overwhelms the earth, the third eye of the divine opens,” Dangi explains. “This performance channels that awakening. I became the presence whose third eye is open—not to destroy, but to restore.”

"Third Eye" is not just a performance—it is an invocation. A reminder that if we continue to ignore the decay around us, then we are willingly erasing the very Earth that sustains us. Through this act, Chiman Dangi urges viewers to open their inner eye, recognize the sacredness of our environment, and embrace their shared responsibility to protect and preserve it.