We go nature-walking inside a Mumbai gallery

A CONVERSATION OUTSIDE THE GALLERY

Beyond triggering our olfactory memory, Sarmaya Arts Foundation extends its engagement through walks and workshops that cross the gallery threshold. These interactions bridge the persistent divide between indoor expression and outdoor experience. In Mumbai, a city where space is compressed and green cover is dwindling, the contrast between vibrant artworks and fading reality becomes all the more stark.

“If you lose a tree, you lose a producer of oxygen and an absorber of carbon dioxide. A tree houses many living things and gives us multiple resources. But we must understand our natural environment to preserve it,” says Paul. Coming from a banker-turned-collector, the sentiment resonates. What began as a single Vaseline jar of coins passed down by his father has grown into a layered archive of memory and material. At Sarmaya’s Mumbai gallery, his collection unfolds as a multisensory narrative grounded in legacy and curiosity.

DIFFERENT NARRATIVES, SHARED THEMES

From a 17th-century treatise on Kerala’s medicinal plants to jubilantly toned 19th-century lithographs of Himalayan birds, the exhibition, drawn from Sarmaya’s existing collection, traces our evolving relationship with the environment. Wonder remains a constant.

As Paul walks us through the show, designed by Pavitra herself, distinct threads emerge. We pause at a rare Indian botany book by Robert Wight. At first glance, it seems purely archival, but a closer look reveals the names of Indian artists often erased from records. Nearby, a Gond painting by Ram Singh Urveti tells a tale of forbidden lovers, separated by caste in life but reunited in death as a tree. In another display sit familiar ingredients like coriander, tomatoes and saffron. Though deeply rooted in our cuisine, their histories trace migration from distant lands, leading you to wonder how nature, as the show suggests, is far from a neutral constant, shaped by ritual, identity and exchange as much as we are shaped by it.

In The Dappled Light is on view at Sarmaya Arts Foundation till 4th May 2025

In the mood for more art? The vanishing point Sabyasachi Mukherjee stands in the shadows of his art foundation