The artist as a witness to the global climate crisis

For its new exhibition, Khoj invited artists to undertake journeys along the 28th parallel north latitude

- Meera Menezes

On the cold foggy day of 22 December, 2022, artist Atul Bhalla addressed the camera placed close to the India-Nepal border. Akin to a TV reporter, he gave an update from the ground. But rather than airing his political views, he focused on the weather and the air quality index. Bhalla’s dispatch was meant to feed into Khoj International Artists' Association's two-year long ‘weather reporting’ project, which forms part of the World Weather Network—a coalition of 28 arts organisations across the world created in response to the global climate crisis.

In April 2022, Khoj, a not-for-profit contemporary arts organization, invited artists Atul Bhalla, Mithu Sen, Raqs Media Collective, Shahana Rajani and Zahra Malkani to form its Weather Station situated along the 28th parallel north latitude. They were called upon to undertake journeys in areas adjacent to the latitude and share “weather reports” in the form of notations, images, and other ruminations about changing weather patterns. The outcome of these itinerant and durational observatories is on display in the exhibition 28° North and Parallel Weathers, which runs till 12 March at Khoj Studios. The exhibition also features projects from two other weather stations: Listening through the Dead Zones by Jana Winderen from IHME Helsinki, and Ngā Raraunga o te Mākū: the data of moisture by Ron Bull, Stefan Marks, Janine Randerson, and Rachel Shearer from Te Tuhi in New Zealand. The projects pose the question: What worlds open up to us when we think of our bodies as a site for “attuned sensing”?