THE PAST OF PLANTS

A transdisciplinary exhibition, 'Travelling Plants', currently on view in Delhi, explores the intersections of art, science and nature through botanical paintings, knitted and embroidered pieces and video projects

- PANKIL JHAJHRIA

1 F there are no buffaloes, there is no Toda" goes a saying among the Toda tribe, one of the indigenous communities of the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu.

Alongside the Todas, the mountains are also home to the Kurumba, Kota, and Irula tribes.

The Nilgiris, part of the Western Ghats, are known for their rich biodiversity. In the 18th century, the region's cool climate attracted British colonisers, who later went on to clear tracts of land for tea plantations. After independence, much of the grassland was treated as wasteland and converted into eucalyptus and acacia forests, with seeds even scattered from aircraft. As a result, indigenous communities lost their homes, while their traditional grazing grounds slowly disappeared. But their art remains.

German artist Karolina Grzywnowicz focuses on Toda embroidery-a sacred ritual and traditional practice of the tribe-in her artwork. She stitches motifs of sun rays, mountain peaks, shola forests, lemon-scented thyme, the grassland's six o'clock flower, and the moon onto an off-white background. For centuries, these patterns have contained coded messages, passed down through generations.