False Clouds and Real Deluges

A stone is a diary of the weather, like a meteorological concentrate. A stone is nothing but weather itself, excluded from atmospheric space and banished to functional space. In order to understand this, you must imagine that all geological changes and displacements can be resolved completely into elements of weather. In this sense, meteorology is more fundamental than mineralogy, which it embraces, washes over, ages, and to which it gives meaning. A stone is an impressionistic diary of weather, accumulated by millions of years of disasters – not only of the past, but also of the future: for it contains periodicity.
- Osip Mandelstam

This above quote by the famous Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, one of the four greats from St Petersburg from the early 20th century before Stalin silenced him with exile and eventual death.

The 28N Parallel within India would start from the village Gokulpur on the Nepal border to the Ranjeet Pura village almost on the Pakistan border. This expedition/s traversing the 28N parallel would include collecting ‘samples’ of weather’s history, using Mandelstam’s quote, from locations along the 28N parallel along with photographs, videos and sound footage that such immersive experience may throw up.

I do not plan to follow the straight line of the 28N latitude very strictly but I intend to document the closest villages, the people, the land, roads through the trope of water as has been my inclination over the years. Locations where human presence is palpable, a few degrees north or south of the 28N where the climate /weather change may be most visible would be foregrounded

I will be using my own car for travel from Delhi and between locations staying at local hotels, villages to gather stories and local histories or in my own tent whichever may be possible and taking short treks and walks locally.

I also intend to make use of GIS and remote sensing data for areas around the 28N which may be available through certain GIS sites for a fee or through institutions.

The world was void,
The populous and the powerful-was a lump
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-
A lump of death -a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and the ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths [1]

From ‘Darkness’ by Lord Byron
[1] Ghosh, Amitav . The Great Derangement. Penguin Books. India. 2016.pg91

Atul Bhalla

Atul Bhalla (b.1964) completed his bachelor’s in fine arts from the College of Art, University of Delhi, and his master’s in fine arts from the School of Art, Northern Illinois University, USA. He is presently a professor of visual art at Shiv Nadar University in India. Bhalla is a conceptual artist working with environmental issues, particularly those surrounding water, for more than two decades. Primarily using photography, the artist engages with the eco-politics of water as well as explores histories and associative meanings of sites of everyday living, often building narratives through performance.

Commissioned by Khoj International Artists’ Association. Khoj's participation in World Weather Network is supported by the British Council’s Creative Commissions for Climate Action, a global programme exploring climate change through art, science and digital technology.

Part of the weather station: 28th North Parallel - find out more here.