AN EAR FOR SILENCE

In the Delhi edition of 'The Listening Biennial', sound artists gathered with audio works and presented listening as a form of ecological and emotional care

- PANKIL JHAJHRIA

WHEN a violent storm tore through Delhi earlier this year, Malavika Bhatia was listening to the devastating chaosto the splintered trunks, the rustling leaves, and the thunderstorm. Her sound work, 'As Above, So Below' recalls that meditation on grief, decay, and the interrupted cycles of the city's dying trees.

Bhatia's work, consisting of recordings of storms, the crash of falling trees, and even conversations she had with them, was on display at the exhibition, 'The Listening Biennial' at Delhi's Khoj Studio, on view from October 9-14. It is being presented across 25 locations internationally from August 21 to October 26.

The artist, who has been walking through Delhi's forests since she was 12, recalls how the unseasonal rains in May and June devastated several trees she had grown close to over the years. An overwhelming sense of loss soon crept over the artist. "It hit me when I realised that these fallen trees wouldn't be left for fungi to feed on," she says.