Art through a biodiversity lens

How more and more artists are working with themes like climate change and depleting natural resources, and connecting with audiences

Long before the elite left India in their private jets, abandoning the country in its pandemic distress, visual artist Vibha Galhotra had touched upon this raw nerve — of the privileged leaving the planet after depleting its resources. In December 2019, she approached her colleagues and friends (the who’s who of the Delhi art scene) to create The Final Feast, which is currently showing at the Asia Triennale in New York. Borrowing from Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, the photo-dramatisation featured art-connoisseur Shalini Passi as a glamorous interpretation of Jesus, hosting a supper and cutting an Earth-shaped cake amid her apostles: gallerists Peter Nagy and Bhavna Kakar, art writer-curator Ina Puri, designer-curator Rajeev Sethi, designers Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna, dancer Navtej Johar, and architect Mrinalini Ghadiok, to name a few. “The Final Feast is part of my exploratory Life on Mars series, which looks at climate change. It demonstrates how human greed has taken over, leaving the world in shreds, just like the circular blue cake that is cut, eaten, and forgotten,” says Galhotra about her allegory.