Kala Phool

Environmentalism India vs UK

This short creative commission between India and UK creative practitioners looked at Urban Landscape, Geography and Architecture through a visual and collaborative lens.

Indy Hunjan (www.kalaphool.com) and Professor Rajinder Dudrah (Birmingham City University) invited emerging creative practitioners from the UK and India, one of them being Haseebah, to jointly explore their environment and that of their community through the production of creative outputs.

 
 

Green Community Spaces Sketch

At first, Haseebah wanted to find a way to make community spaces green (physically and aesthetically) in order to make them more environmentally conscious. Ali was particularly looking at spaces of gathering such as popular food places in her area, places of worship and parks.

Haseebah settled on a chicken shop idea and how it could be a greener and inviting lushness and foliage into grey urban settings. However as the project progressed, she soon realized you can’t add these embellishments to the community before addressing the environmental issues that the community and society is already suffering with such as air pollution and lack of green spaces.

Collaboration Image- Linoprint, ink on paper

The image on the left is a collaboration of ideas of all artists involved in the project created by Haseebah.. This lino print is particularly inspired by Neha’s ‘Mother Earth’ piece.

Haseebah wanted to revisit the postage stamp style as she felt it leans well into themes of movement and environmental displaced within communities. For the style of postage stamp, she researched into vintage postage stamp styles to create more of a link with Neha’s work.

Final three images

For the final visual outcomes of the project Haseebah decided to create three lino prints in the postage stamp style, that currently depict the environmental issues in the UK that required more of attention/discourse.

Minority Air Quality- Ink on paper

The first lino print depicts research into how air pollution is not evenly distributed in the UK, and how its impact disproportionally affects global majority and low-income communities. Those that are most likely to live near busy roads, motorways and have a comparative lack of green spaces such as parks and trees will bear the brunt of pollutants despite contributing the least to air pollution.

Bottom Trawling- Ink on paper

The linoprint describes the act of bottom trawling, a method of fishing that involves heavy weighted nets across the sea floor, in an attempt to catch fish. It’s a favored method by commercial fishing companies because it can catch large quantities of product in one go. According to a study, fishing boats that trawl the ocean floor can release as much carbon dioxide as the entire aviation industry.

There is a play on the words ‘Great Britain’ and colonialism as although Britain eludes itself to be the greatest, it still deals with environmental issues just like any other country.

Pocket Park- Ink on paper

This lino print in a postage stamp style displays green spaces in the UK, and how it has been proven through many scientific studies that access to green spaces can improve mental health and wellbeing. There has been a continual rise of UK residents visiting green spaces since the pandemic. However an important thing to note, access to green spaces is dependant on where a person lives which highlights the inequalities in accessing nature through varying classes and regions in Britain.

Here is a report which discusses this further.

Finall Thoughts

The project has allowed Haseebah to explore and listen to other artist’s stories and exchange critical ideas and thought about how the climate crisis can affect communities around the world. Haseebah has since reflected on her own community in Birmingham and the extend of environmentalism in the UK, and how air pollution, carbon levels and lack of green spaces directly affect working class communities. The main takeaway from the project for Haseebah has been that in order to highlight community spaces, we must first look after and care for those members of the community.

You can find out more information about Kalaphool and the India-UK environmentalism project here.