Visual Artist | Visual Anthropologist | Storyteller of Human–Nature Relationships
I am a visual artist and visual anthropologist based in Pune, India, working at the intersection of art, ecology, culture, and human stories. For over two decades, my practice has explored how human life mirrors the deeper design of nature — its cycles of birth, decay, migration, disintegration, resilience, and renewal.
Trained in both anthropology and art, I approach the natural world not just as a subject of beauty, but as a philosophical language that reveals how people live, transform, and belong. My work is rooted in the belief that the stories we hold — as individuals, families, communities, or diasporas — are deeply connected to the living rhythms of the Earth.
Through my art, I continue to explore one central question:
How can we understand ourselves better by understanding the nature that holds us?
DISCOVER CHERISHED CHRONICLES
Your story, translated into art.
Cherished Chronicles is my commissioned art practice where personal, family, or brand stories are transformed into meaningful visual narratives. Drawing from visual anthropology and nature’s philosophical metaphors, each artwork becomes a unique reflection of who you are and the journey that shaped you.
I begin with conversations — understanding your memories, values, migrations, and turning points. These human experiences are then interpreted through natural symbols such as roots, rings, branches, seed dispersal, or textures of growth and change.
The result is a bespoke artwork that feels intimate, timeless, and deeply connected to your life.
A Chronicle is not just a painting — it is a legacy piece, created to be lived with, returned to, and cherished over generations.
Blooms of Sonale
Created for Geetanjali & Atul Kulkarni’s home in Sonale, this painting captures the living relationship they’ve built with the trees surrounding their house. It reflects the quiet bloom, growth and rhythm of the landscape they have lovingly nurtured.
Growing Museum
'Growing Museum' began from a simple urge — to let art grow also in the places that shape it. I found that many of the stories, textures, and observations I was drawn to did not belong only inside formal galleries. They also belonged in the landscapes and communities where they were born.
Each edition develops quietly over two months, taking its form from the people, the land, and the everyday rhythm around it. The spaces are native, the subjects are native, and the Growing Museum becomes something that feels lived rather than displayed.
I don’t see Growing Museum as a project or an outreach initiative. It’s simply another way I work — creating spaces and installations where art can also breathe outside traditional walls, and where new audiences meet it in an effortless and natural way.
Gunehar Kangra Valley
In collaboration with Kahani ki Dukaan
In Gunehar, the Growing Museum unfolded through a living installation of words. We moved between the older and younger generations, gathering the vocabulary that shaped their memories, landscapes, and imaginations. What emerged was a shifting map of language—lost words, new words, changing meanings—showing how a community evolves even as it holds on to its roots. The installation became a breathing archive, not of objects but of conversations, echoing the way Gunehar remembers, forgets, and continually rewrites itself.
Sonale
In collaboration with The Tarapa Workspace
In Sonale, the museum grew through the eyes and footsteps of children. We followed their routes to the trees they loved—trees they climbed, named, sheltered under, or spoke to. Their bonds with the landscape revealed a world of intimate geographies, where each tree held a story of play, trust, and belonging. By mapping these relationships, the museum became a portrait of Sonale’s living ecology, told not through science or nostalgia but through the genuine affection children hold for the natural world around them.
Deulgaongada
In collaboration with The Deepgriha Society
In Deulgaongada, the project turned toward the vastness and subtlety of the grasslands. I walked through their shifting colours, textures, and silences, tracing the life that thrives in what often appears empty. The grassland became both subject and collaborator—teaching patience, attention, and the art of noticing. Through this exploration, the museum grew as an ecological memory of the place, honouring a landscape that is fragile, overlooked, yet deeply alive with its own rhythms and histories.
Research & Training
My practice sits at the intersection of visual anthropology, archaeology, childhood studies, and human–nature relationships. I explore how children construct meaning through stories, objects, landscapes, and sensory engagement. Across workshops and field projects, I design slow, reflective experiences that help learners connect identity, culture, and ecology.
Research Focus
Childhood, Identity & Belonging
How children negotiate selfhood through narratives, memory, and place.
Art Education & Multisensory Learning
Hands-on making, observation, and material sensitivity as learning tools.
Human–Nature Relationships
Children’s emotional and cultural connections with plants, gardens, and ecology.
Participatory & Community Art
Collaborative processes where children and communities co-create knowledge.
Archaeology, Memory & Time
Using archaeological thinking to explore continuity, change, and lived experience.
Teaching Practice
For nearly two decades, I have created research-driven workshops and learning programmes for children, educators, and cultural institutions.
Core Workshop Themes
Mock Excavations – Understanding layers, objects, and storytelling.
Rock Art & Early Expression – Symbols, marks, ancient communication.
Concepts of Time – Cyclical time, personal timelines, historical imagination.
Ecological Narratives – Observing plants and human–nature relationships.
Identity & Cultural Memory – Exploring self through stories and environments.
Institutions & Collaborations
I have been invited to conduct workshops, lectures, and educator trainings by leading academic and cultural institutions, including:
-
IIT, Gandhinagar, India
-
TIFR, India
-
Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, India
-
Symbiosis Institute of Design, Pune, India
-
Gujarat University, India
-
The Theatre Company, India
-
Various schools, museums, NGOs, and cultural centres across India