Way of the Forest

This travelling edition of the Colomboscope arts festival features work by 19 artists from South Asia and Africa.

Taking over Galleries 1 and 2 inside 421 Arts Campus, it focuses on interdependence, custodianship, and restorative practices across rainforests, wilderness, mountain cultivations, and riverine wetlands. It invites approaching the forest as a multispecies school – moving from the lexicon of plunder, reckless supremacy, and extinction, to embrace its lessons in organic networks of mutual aid and restorative balance. As the blurb has it: “This exhibition is an intricate study of our eroding ecological histories, of lost environmental wisdoms, monstrous developmental agendas, and ghosts of extraction. It endeavours to plot legacies of colonization of resources and minds that operate in disguise. Within mutating landscapes, artists question who owns forest lands, who gets displaced, and who is restricted from sites marked for conservation …”

Participating artists are Rakibul Anwar, Moza Almatrooshi, Shiraz Bayjoo, U. Arulraj, Jayatu Chakma, Nahla al Tabbaa, Pathum Dharmarathna, Sangita Maity, Karachi LaJamia, Sanod Maharjan, Saodat Ismailova, Pushpakanthan Pakkiyarajah, Sarmila Sooriyakumar with Pirainila Krishnarajah, Otobong Nkanga, MTF Rukshana, Tamarra Jayasundera, Karunasiri Wijesinghe, Kulagu Tu Buvongan, and Thava Thajendran.

Originally presented in Colombo in January 2024, the exhbition has been adapted to engage audiences in the UAE. It’s the second time that 421 has partnered with Colomboscope, a collaboration exemplifies 421’s “commitment to fostering cultural dialogue, forging new modes of institutional support, and inspiring ways of thinking about art and its role in addressing global challenges”.

The exhibition is curated by Hit Man Gurung (artist and curator), Natasha Ginwala (Artistic Director, Colomboscope), Sheelasha Rajbhandari (artist and curator), and Sarker Protick (artist and curator) with Vidhi Todi (assistant curator, Colomboscope 2024).

To 29 December.