Location: IGNCA, Bengaluru
Date: 2025

Work: Exhibition Design and Curation
 

Mobility is the key to pastoral systems. Their seasonal oscillations between native habitations, and the pastures they migrate to, are spent in homes on the move. Variously called ‘vada’, laang’, ‘dhang’, ‘dera’ across communities and regions, these herding camps are imprinted on pastoral tracks and terrains of the country.

Across the Deccan, Himalayas or the semi-arid plains of western India, these transient dwelling camps stand out in the ease and courage with which they sit on vast, open lands, under a watchful sky.

They occupy spaces unobtrusively, merging with the land in minimal assemblage. There are no barriers for an outsider as one enters a camp, except for the protective presence of a pastoral dog! There is no ‘entrance’, no ‘door’, which defines their world, both within and without. And yet, the self-contained, and solitary stillness of the dhang or vada does not allow for easy intrusions. These camps are conspicuous and unobtrusive, visible and invisible, fluid and grounded, with an open and compelling call to enter, sit and chat over a cup of chai!

The frugality and fluidity of their habitations is nurtured by their life in the Commons. As they move from one site to another, accessing water and forage, they carry, with great lightness, the truth of impermanence; regenerating both, their homes and the pastures as it were, before they leave to return again, the following year.