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

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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.

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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.

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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.

 

Heritage |Site specific Installation & Performance Collaboration with local 2020 | Art Juncation   Sowing Seeds International Village Art Residency Udaipur India     https://blog.rowleygallery.co.uk/sowing-seeds/

Materials – Chisel Hammer, Found object Cloth and Pigment

Encounter

Encounter 

Environment Art Project, performance & Installation, 4th KIAR International Art Symposium Pune India.

 

From My Window’s| Site specific Installation 2019 |International Multimedia Art Symposia Mohanlal Sukhadia University Udaipur India

Materials – Found object and Pigment  Powder

khejri, for trees (Khejarli Chipko movement's founder fiction)

 Khejri, for the Trees

Chiman Dangi (India) and Vincent Barré (France)
Sapchat Cave, Saint-Nectaire, Massif du Sancy, 2016
Arts Nature en Sancy – Horizons, 10th Edition

At the entrance to the Sapchat Cave in the Massif du Sancy, silver-ringed trees line the path, leading to a solitary stele draped in silver leaves. Etched into its surface is a story of resistance, memory, and ecological reverence.

In 1731, in the village of Khejarli in Rajasthan, India, a woman named Amrita Devi stood against a royal decree ordering the felling of the sacred Khejri trees—vital to the desert ecosystem and deeply revered by the local community. Together with her three daughters, she embraced a tree and was killed with it. Their sacrifice ignited a movement, and soon hundreds of villagers—women, children, and men—gave their lives to protect the trees. This act of defiance marked one of the earliest known ecological uprisings and sowed the seeds for what would later be recognized as the Chipko (meaning “to embrace”) movement.

The installation "Khejri, for the Trees" is a poetic and political reflection on environmental loss, climate change, and the human relationship to nature. It draws a poignant parallel between the deforested, desertifying lands of Rajasthan and the forested highlands of the Sancy. While some temperate regions witness the return of trees, others—like Rajasthan—face an accelerating ecological decline.

What connects these distant geographies is a shared responsibility: to protect, value, and restore the natural world. This work is a call to remember the courage of communities who have fought for the land, and a reminder that the Earth’s fragile balance depends on collective stewardship across continents.

                             

khejri, for trees (Khejarli Chipko movement's founder fiction) | Site Specific sculpture / Performance with Vincent Barre (France), Cave Sapchat, Saint-Nectaire France , Massif du Sancy,  #Horizons Arts nature in Sancy 2016.  http://lemag.myclermont.fr/horizons-sancy/

Peepal Pooja

Peepal Pooja 

Peepal Pooja | Site Specific Performance, Installation and Video | Healing Hills Artist Residency 2015 | Morni Hills Panjab India. Materials: Peepal Tree trunk, Red and white cloth, pots, local pigment powder *Junior Fellowship Ministry of Culture, Indian Govt. Program.

From Market to Dumping Ground - Matheran Waste Cart Procession

From Market to Dumping Ground - Matheran Waste Cart Procession | Site Specific Performance Collaboration by Chiman Dangi and Brydee Rood 2015 |  Matheran Green Festival. 

Spurred from the context of life in Matheran Hills, a performance action, which involved high-jacking a working rubbish collection cart, and honouring its workers and the process of waste collection by unfolding a series of a sacred rituals throughout the procession from the main market place to the Matheran Dumping Ground. We created garments from silver plates, leaf plates and recycled fabrics; we decorated Jharoo with gold and silver foils and ribbons, and used them like warrior’s arms or ceremonial staffs. Our heads were adorned with a crowning 3rd eye for nature something befitting the forest on the forehead and empowering the inner eco warrior and garbage goddess queen.

From Market to Dumping Ground - Matheran Waste Cart Procession was created as a direct response to the environs of Matheran - meaning "forest on the forehead" an eco sensitive Bombay hill station “discovered by Hugh Poyntz Malet, the then district collector of Thane district in May 1850. Today

Matheran is a very curious place, without modes of popular transport cars, bikes, busses… the tradition of riding by horseback, hand pulled cart or walking prevails and impacts positively on daily life an inviting lush holiday destination popular with tourists. On the other hand - the impact and residues of human waste are evident throughout the delicate habitat. Plummeting breath taking views into Matheran’s green valleys are belied by accumulated carpets of thrown plastic bottles, food packets, snack plates… The evidence of a contemporary human presence carelessly left in the wake of their collective daily life. 

Abu Road to Achalgarh Fort

Abu Road to Achalgarh Fort | Photography Series Along the Road  | Chiman Dangi at NIV Art Center Mount Abu, Sirohi, INDIA

Animism

Animism |  Chiman Dangi 2014 | Site Specific Installation with the NIV Art Center Mount Abu, Sirohi, 2014 INDIA Materials: Natural rock formation, Indian pigment powder and foil paper

Existence

Existence | Site Specific Installation with NIV Art Center Mount Abu 2014 | Sirohi, India | Materials: Rock, Indian pigment powder, foil paper.

Survival Yoga

Survival Yoga | Brydee Rood and Chiman Dangi 2014 | Site specific performance and video installation at NiV Art Centre Mt Abu Artist in Residence Program. 

We began thinking a lot about clean environments - wild and domestic, relating to topics of health and survival and the tasks of daily life. Survival Yoga involves the revival of an old, rusty, and broken Jhula (love seat, swing) which we found discarded on the rooftop of the NiV residency. We were drawn to its sculptural qualities and its functionality, finding value and promise in this object, we also noted that there were quite a few Jhula in the homes and gardens of Mt Abu residents.

Inspired by our many visits to Mt Abu's numerous and diverse temples, we wished to combine ritual with creative play using a variety of material ephemera to communicate something of our experience. The playful action of swinging to and fro and the delicate wrapping of Mali (foil papers) over the rusted iron limbs come together with dangling recycled drip bottles collected from the local hospital, sweeper brooms bought in the market, fallen flowers and survival blankets. The performance swings into life as each artist takes a turn to sit in the meditative rocking seat.

Jaan Temple

Jaan Temple - A collaborative social installation by Chiman Dangi and Brydee Rood situated the fresh water lagoon and ocean at SPLORE Festival Tapapakanga Regonal Park New Zealand 2014. Jaan Temple was created site-specifically involving live performance where the artists tended the temple with daily public rituals. | Materials: Stones, Local pigment, (malipanna) Foil Papers, Wood Leaf, Rajasthani Dress, solar lights and miscellaneous reused waste material. Jaan Temple is a creative meditation on love and community, exploration of human connectivity and confrontation to our sensual perception.