Ravi Agarwal

Special Project

Co-curating Time as a Mother and Blue Carbon.

Ravi Agarwal has an inter-disciplinary practice as a photographer/ artist, environmental campaigner, writer, and curator. Bridging the divide between art and activism, he addresses the entangled questions of nature and its futures using photography, video, text and installation. His work ranges from the long documentary to the conceptual and performative. He has regularly published photobooks and diaries. The book Down and Out, – OUP 2002, was the first major photographic work on migrant labour in India. His latest book Multispecies Speculations and Growing Lexicon, is part of his multispecies art project Samtal Jameen, Samtal Jameer supported by the Prince Claus Foundation.

His work has been shown widely at major museums and at the Biennials of Havana (2019), Yinchuan (2018), Kochi (2016), Sharjah (2013), Indian Highway (2009), Documenta XI (2002) etc. besides solos and group exhibitions. He has curated large Indo-European public art projects, and was photography curator for the Serendipity Arts Festival 2018 and 2019.

Ravi has served on several important art and photography juries. His work is in several private and public collections. He has authored and edited several books, and writes and publishes regularly on art and sustainability. Alongside, Agarwal is the founder director of the environmental NGO Toxics Link and founder of The Shyama Foundation set up to support art and ecology practices in India.