Annalisa Mansukhani, ASAP Art
December 19, 2023

Paul Mellon Centre, Yale University
October 13, 2023

In October 2023, the Climate & Colonialism research project at the Paul Mellon Centre will welcome Ravi Agarwal as a visiting scholar.

Ravi Agarwal will be collaborating with Sria Chatterjee and the broader Climate & Colonialism team to develop a strand of the project focused on environmental justice and its relations to extraction, policy, and the arts. Ravi’s ongoing multimodal practice has been deeply informed by these relations.

Bergen Assembly, e-flux
August 18,  2023

For its fifth edition Bergen Assembly has appointed Ravi Agarwal (an artist and researcher), Adania Shibli (a writer and visual culture researcher) and Bergen School of Architecture (BAS, an alternative educational institution) as joint conveners.

Bergen Assembly is a platform for the arts devoted to supporting and exploring continuous artistic work, and develops an in-depth project that takes place in the city of Bergen every three years. Conveners join each edition and consider new ways to conceive of Bergen Assembly, allowing each iteration to take on distinctly different formats and ideas.

Virginia Whiles, Critical Collective
August 23,  2022

The world-renowned Arles-based photography festival, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, is celebrating its 53rd edition this year. Its current director, Christophe Wiener, announced that the 2022 edition is dedicated to revealing the potency of women photographers who have thus far remained hidden in history. Ironically though, the majority of those featured in the show are either already well known, such as Lee Miller and Susan Meiselas, or appear as curiously dated, particularly the 1970s performers represented in the section called Une Avant-Garde Féministe, curated by Gabriele Schor from the Verbund Collection in Vienna and on display at the La Mécanique Générale. Many photographs still shock, such as Valie Export’s self-portrait, showing her sitting with the crotch of her jeans cut out and a sub-machine gun on her lap. Yet, the mass of images (200 for 73 women) is overwhelming in density, tending towards a fusion of political correctness and déjà-vu fatigue.

Critical Collective
 March 23,  2022

Ravi Agarwal in conversation with Critical Collective regarding “New Natures: A Terrible Beauty is Born”, the next iteration of State of Nature – a project initiated by Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai in 2018 that brings together multiple perspectives to understand and address our present ecological crisis. This exhibition is a proposition to rethink the world as we know it today. As Curator of Literature, Ranjit Hoskote has conceptualised a programme consisting of prominent writers, poets, and essayists that intervenes the exhibition.

Dr. Caroline Ha Thuc, The first Trans—Southeast Asia Triennial research exhibition series
Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts
November 10, 2021

Else All Will Be Still is an ensemble of works, mainly photographs and videos, derived from Ravi Agarwal’s long-term fieldwork among fishermen in a small coastal village of Tamil Nadu, India. The series offers a multitude of perspectives from which to grasp the complex reality of this community whose traditional way of life is bound to disappear. The work focuses on the fishermen’s work techniques and daily gestures, and emphasizes their specific relationship with the local ecosystem. At the same time, Agarwal proposes a deeper reflection on the unfathomable nature of the sea and shares his own experience and attempts to capture its inexhaustible features.

G5A Foundation | August 10, 2021

Ravi Agarwal has an interdisciplinary practice as an artist, photographer, environmental campaigner, writer, curator. His work explores key contemporary questions of ecology, society, urban space and capital. Photography has been a prime medium for him for over four decades, which has expanded over time to include video, public art, installations, and recently also printmaking.

Photo South Asia

Profile of Ravi Agarwal by Photo South Asia.

Restart Radio | 27 June 2019

Ravi Agarwal is a multifaceted artist and activist based in New Delhi. We hear Ravi’s reflections on his life between disciplines, and we learn about the work of his NGO, Toxics Link. We talk about the toxicity of e-waste and the threats it poses to people working in recycling sites.

Vincenzo Estremo, Droste Effect Magazine | April 8, 2019

Taking pictures of something in order to keep it in mind is a common practice, that is functional on the one hand, but on the other it empties photography of its past. Ravi Agarwal‘s latest exhibition at PAV – Parco Arte Vivente in Turin (Italy), curated by Marco Scotini, is a journey of rediscovering the embedded report of photography’s political function.

Arte.It – The Map of Art in Italy | 08 March 2019

On Friday 8th March 2019, PAV Parco Arte Vivente will present Ecologies of Loss, the first Italian solo exhibition of the Indian artist Ravi Agarwal. Curated by Marco Scotini, this exhibition continues his investigation into the relationship between artistic practices and ecological thought in the Asian continent, begun with the solo exhibition of the Chinese artist Zheng Bo Weed Party III. This investigation (around which there will soon be other events), wants to take stock of the “centrality of Asia in the climate crisis” as claimed by Amitav Ghosh. 

e-Flux | February 14, 2019

PAV Parco Arte Vivente presents Ecologies of Loss, the first Italian solo exhibition of the Indian artist Ravi Agarwal. Curated by Marco Scotini, this exhibition continues the investigation into the relationship between artistic practices and ecological thought in the Asian context, begun with the solo exhibition of the Chinese artist Zheng Bo. This research wants to take stock of the “centrality of Asia in the climate crisis” as claimed by Amitav Ghosh.

Jaideep Sen, Indian Express | February 01, 2019

THE heightened sense of anticipation at the India Art Fair 2019 cuts like a knife through the clouds of winter smog hanging low over the NSIC Grounds of the capital. The shows of note at the festival are many, by a number of acclaimed artists from India and overseas, but a few names have everybody’s attention piqued like icicles in a snow storm.

Skye Arundhati Thomas, e-Flux | June 12, 2017

Renuka Sawhney

Ravi Agarwal’s work takes the forms of photographs, videos, installation, research and writing on pressingenvironmental concerns and activism. In Else, all will be Still, Agarwal integrates these varied forms into complexenunciations of his engagement with specific bodies of knowledge; Agarwal tackles the epistemologies of natureand ecology placing them in a dance with the social contract through the ontology of its objects.

Siddhi Jain, The Quint | February 09, 2019

Another work by Ravi Agarwal called “The Desert of the Anthropocene” is an installation with photographic works, text, videos and objects, and is a part of an ongoing investigation into the current state of the nature — both as a crisis which traverses a political realm, but also a cultural contestation of how ‘nature’ is thought of as an abstract idea to be exploited, in the era of the Anthropocene.

Heena Khandelwal, DNA

Can artists succeed where activists have failed? Environmentalists and animals rights activists have not got very far with opposing development projects such as the Ken-Betwa river-linking project which threaten to damage ecologically-sensitive areas, but a unique theatre project held in the capital this weekend tried to see whether art could work any better.    

This was a  staged‘mock trial’ named ‘Landscape as Evidence: Artist as Witness’ with participation by ‘real’lawyers – Norma Alvares and Anand Grover – and a ‘real’, albeit retired, judge – Justice Yatindra Singh, the former Chief Justice of Chattisgarh High Court. The  ‘witnesses’ were artists Navjot Altaf, Ravi Agarwal and Sheba Chhachhi who presented ‘evidence’in the form of artworks which were examined and cross-examined by the lawyers . 

Melograno Art Gallery | 9 March, 2019

Venerdì 8 Marzo 2019, il PAV Parco Arte Vivente presenta Ecologies of Loss, la prima personale italiana dell’artista indiano Ravi Agarwal. Con questa mostra, a cura di Marco Scotini, prosegue l’indagine del rapporto tra pratiche artistiche e pensiero ecologista nel continente asiatico, inaugurata con la personale dell’artista cinese Zheng Bo Weed Party III. L’indagine (che vedrà presto altri appuntamenti) cerca di fare il punto sulla “centralità dell’Asia nella crisi climatica”, come sostiene Amitav Ghosh.

Tra i maggiori esponenti della scena artistica indiana, da decenni Ravi Agarwal conduce una pratica inter-disciplinare come artista, fotografo, attivista ambientale, scrittore e curatore. Il suo lavoro esplora questioni nodali dell’epoca contemporanea quali l’ecologia, la società, lo spazio urbano e rurale, il capitale. Per oltre quattro decadi, la fotografia ha costituito il medium d’elezione per il lavoro di Ravi Agarwal, che ha poi conosciuto una dimensione più estesa grazie all’inclusione di installazioni, video, interventi di arte pubblica, diari, all’interno di progetti dalla durata pluriennale.

Prakash Goldpearl, Chennayil | January 8, 2019

Art and its ideas have a special role to play in shaping our consciousness. Urban spaces, particularly those in rapidly expanding cities in new developing economies are in direct conflict with nature, as rivers, wetlands, green areas, are being changed to suit urbanization’s short term goals. To help re-think urban space as democratic and in coexistence with nature, Embrace our Rivers was proposed as a public art project in the coastal megacity of Chennai, India. It was to be held on the estuary of the very polluted river Cooum, where the highly polluted river meets the beautiful, wide Bay of Bengal at the Marina Beach, one of the longest beaches in any city.

Dr. Caroline Ha Thuc, Art Press

Weakened by industrialisation, pollution and climate change, the marine ecosystem of Asia is now attracting the attention of researchers and artists working to spotlight and revive local customs that may hold the key to a new relationship between humanity and nature.

French Title: Plongée en Asie artistes chercheurs, peuples de la mer et écologie

Fragilisé par l’industrialisation, la pollution et le bouleversement climatique, l’écosystème marin attire aujourd’hui en Asie l’attention de chercheurs et d’artistes œuvrant pour donner à voir et raviver des coutumes locales qui détiennent peut-être la clef d’une nouvelle relation de l’humanité à la nature.

Joe Burrows, London Photography Diary |
December 15, 2019

Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF), is a leading multidisciplinary art event and is one of the largest in South Asia. Curating a wide variety of works, with performing arts, film and literature, and photography to name a few, SAF offers a comprehensive insight into contemporary Indian art. In the run-up to SAF’s fourth edition, London Photography Diary spoke with Ravi Agarwal, Photography Curator for 2019.

Gayatri Sinha, The Hindu | March 22, 2019

With regard to India, Enwezor in a sense catapulted three artists to the world stage with documenta 11: Raqs Media Collective, Ravi Agarwal and Amar Kanwar, all media practitioners who gained a platform for an engagement with social issues. What he had succeeded in doing with mapping African photography had an echo closer home.

REDAZIONE DIGICULT | March 3, 2019

PAV Parco Arte Vivente presents Ecologies of Loss, the first Italian solo exhibition of the Indian artist Ravi Agarwal. Curated by Marco Scotini, this exhibition continues the investigation into the relationship between artistic practices and ecological thought in the Asian context, begun with the solo exhibition of the Chinese artist Zheng Bo. This research wants to take stock of the “centrality of Asia in the climate crisis” as claimed by Amitav Ghosh.

Marg Magazine | September-December 2018

Death by Water: Einvironmental Documentaries, a Brief Overview – by Veena Hariharan

The Work of Freedom in a World of Images – by Pallavi Paul

The List | 2 August 2018

At Edinburgh Printmakers, Indian artist Ravi Agarwal has his first solo UK show Nàdar / Prakriti, which is inspired by a research residency undertaken by the artist in the Scottish Highlands. Agarwal is interested in the pressures and challenges posed to nature in Scotland, a nation whose landscape looks an awful lot less unformed by human intervention than it actually is.

Sanghmitra Jethwani, DNA | February 14, 2018

A discussion among artists, activists and researchers sought to find a solution for the garbage crisis

DAS MÜLLPROJEKT | June 17, 2017

Waste has been accepted as an outcome of the material economy. It is produced throughout the extraction, production and consumption process. It is however in reality a waste of resources or ‘nature.’ At best we seem to be concerned with disposing waste, owing to health, hygiene and aesthetic considerations. So long as it ‘disappears’ without a ‘trace,’ we are comfortable with it. In fact till a few decades back, waste was not even considered to be a problem, and was dumped everywhere. Often the disposal of waste causes series challenges of containing toxicity in the form of emissions or effluents, which are partially overcome by employing high tech solutions which are extremely expensive, and even then inadequate.

Caroline Picard, Bad at Sports | August 09, 2016

Based out of New Delhi, artist, curator, writer and activist, Ravi Agarwal works to unearth the complexity of humanity’s ecological and economic imagination, drawing connections between Europe and India, while comparing the implementation and impact of industrial methods.

Shreya Ray, Open Magazine | 10 May, 2016

Ravi Agarwal’s photography forces us to ask: Is this what we do to nature? Is this what we do in turn, to ourselves?

Art Radar | April 11, 2016

Ravi Agarwal’s body of work is a keen and sustained contemplation on questions of ecological sustainability, urban developmental practices, capital and the human conditions of those who share an intimate relationship with the nature around them. His latest solo exhibition “Else, all will be still”, running at Gallery Espace in Delhi from 8 April to 14 May 2016, is a further excavation of his preoccupation with these issues, particularly man’s relationship to nature.

Besides photography, Delhi-based Agarwal also works with video, performance, public art, in situ installations and found objects. He is a writer, curator and an environmental activist who has written extensively on ecological issues and is Founder-Director of the NGO Toxic Link.

Wyanet Vaz, Verve Magazine | December 31, 2015

Verve documents all the canvases that made it to our art wall in 2015.

Huzan Tata, Verve Magazine | November 22, 2015

Agarwal’s artworks focus on the ecosystem, and our ever-changing land, trying to find answers along the way, through a series of photographs, videos and installations. ‘Urgency is in the air. Else, all will be still,’ as the artist says.

Massachusetts College of Art and Design | September 28, 2015

Project Y (Public. Art. Outreach) was a project held on the banks of the River Yamuna in Delhi. The event was part of a twin city Yamuna-Elbe Project¹ which took place in Hamburg and Delhi in October and November 2011. The curatorial ideas to guide Project Y were to re-imagine and change the dominant narrative of the river as being ‘dirty’ to it being ‘beautiful’, and to ‘reproduce’ it as an ecological public space accessible to all. It was also a proposal for an ecologically sustainable Delhi, which is currently facing severe stress. Questions like ‘should rivers just be left alone and allowed to flow unfettered, irrespective of their utility’, or ‘how should we think of rivers, ecosystems, technology and urban spaces’ or ‘what happens when we replace economy with ecology’, and ‘does development answers the question of ecology’, were inscribed within.

India Seminar | 2014

Camilla Boemio, Landscape Stories | June 2012

Interview curated by Camilla Boemio

Reykjavík Art Museum | September 9, 2010

The overall theme of the exhibition, Indian Highway, involves reflections on the importance of the road in migration and movement and as the link between rural and urban communities. The title also makes reference to technology and the ‘information superhighway’, which has been central to India’s economic boom. A common thread throughout is the way in which these artists demonstrate an active political and social engagement, examining complex issues in contemporary India that include environmentalism, religious sectarianism, globalization, gender, sexuality and class.

The New Indian Express | December 16, 2018

Curated by photographer-curator and environmental campaigner Ravi Agarwal, the show titled “Intimate Documents” looks at the photograph as a document that turns more contemporary as it showcases more of the photographer’s personal space.implementation and impact of industrial methods.