The Sovereign Forest is an ongoing multimedia installation that is a creative response to crime, politics, human rights, and ecological crisis. It evolved out of the political and environmental conflict in the resource-rich, and largely tribal Indian state of Odisha. Kanwar has been observing and documenting the industrial interventions that have irrevocably altered Odisha’s landscape for more than a decade. The Sovereign Forest is a long-term commitment of the artist with media activist Sudhir Pattnaik, and designer and filmmaker Sherna Dastur.

In parallel with this exhibition, Amar Kanwar’s Such a Morning will be on view at Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai (details below, and in the press release link at right).

Multiple works make up The Sovereign Forest, which has appeared in different iterations. At its core are two films: The Scene of the Crime (2011), a film that documents landscapes selected for industrial development prior to their obliteration, and A Love Story (2010), about the experience of that loss. The installation will include three large handmade books, The Counting Sisters and Other Stories (2011), The Prediction (1991–2012), and The Constitution (2012) with their own films projected on its pages. Containing local fables, stories of the incarcerated, and pieces of “evidence” such as a fishing net, a cloth garment, rice seeds, a betel leaf, and newspaper embedded inside the paper, visitors are encouraged to turn the pages and read these stories.

This exhibition is produced with the support of Samadrusti, Odisha; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK; documenta 13, Kassel; and Public Press, New Delhi.