Curatorial exhibition. Artist: Monika Hniková (CZ). University of Delhi, North Campus, February 2023.
“The overall heavy metal pollution index value of theYamuna river was found to be 1492 that is far above the critical pollution index value of 100, above which the overall pollution level should be considered unacceptable.”[1]
“Except for cabbage, lead levels were found to be above the standard in all vegetables collected from vendors. While the safe limit for lead in vegetables has been set at 2.5mg/kg by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the level of the metal detected in vegetable samples collected from the floodplain ranges from 2.8mg/kg to 13.8mg/kg. The study was conducted in February 2019 by the NEERI, a research institute under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).”[2]
On the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi, farmers irrigate their crops with river water. Toxins seep into the plants and from them into us. As the space that can accommodate life gradually shrinks, our bodies become sick and invisibly mutate. Since the limits of livable space cannot be perceived by the senses, liberal society is free to pretend that they do not exist and continue to push the most vulnerable over the edge.
Most of the Yamuna farmers have come to Delhi from neighboring states to grow vegetables in the hope of making a living. They don't think about cause and effect. The present situation is always too dire, so they believe that they have no choice. The waste that enters the river through the canals is produced by those who live in the city above. But in the end, they are the ones who buy the toxic vegetables, so most of them don't have a choice either.
Monika Hniková uses waste engine oil to paint fragile, faded leaves and stalks that remotely resemble old Chinese ink paintings. But unlike these, Monika's paintings of spinach and other vegetables do not represent a balanced exchange of energy in a life-sustaining environment, but point to the fact that Delhi's urban ecosystem is inexorably moving beyond the horizon of life.
“Hyperobjects are so huge and so long-lasting, compared with humans, that they obviously seem both vivid and slightly unreal, for exactly the same reasons. Hyperobjects such as global warming and nuclear radiation surround us, not some abstract entity such as Nature or environment or world.”[3]
[1] Richa Bhardwaj – Anshu Gupta – J.K. Garg. Evaluation of heavy metal contamination using environmetrics and indexing approach for River Yamuna, Delhi stretch, India. In Water Science, Volume 31, Issue 1. 2017. p. 64. ISSN 1110-4929.
[2] Joydeep Thakur. Vegetables in Delhi markets contain toxic metals: Study. In Hindustan Times. Jul 26, 2019. online. <https://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/vegetables-in-delhi-markets-contain-toxic-metals-study/story-L9d26TBm1lE6ttivb78jMO.html>
[3] Timothy Morton (2013). Hyperobjects. Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 19. ISBN: 978-1-4529-4056-4
