vibha galhotra
Vibha Galhotra's work revolves around issues characterizing the progressive depletion of our urban and living environment, and the impact on everyday life of globalization, capitalisms and nationalisms. Born in 1978, Chandigarh, India, the artist received her BFA in Graphics from the Government College of Arts, Chandigarh and her MFA in Graphics from Kala Bhavan – Visva Bharti, Santiniketan.
By using photography, animation, found object, installations and sculptures, Galhotra’s work often uses a satirical, parodic strategy to portray critical issues affecting our lives: Neo-Monster is a gigantic inflatable bulldozer traveling to public spaces and stimulating viewers reactions to the progressive destruction of green spaces for property development; Sediments, a series of canvases on which she has splashed silt collected from the highly polluted Yamuna river in Delhi, is instead a sarcastic statement on the cynical nature of modern art and the art market.
Orbis Unum II
Material: poly-based fabric, photo luminous thread, bamboo, wooden rod
Orbis Unum II ("one world" in Latin) presents a reinterpretation of the flags of the 197 existing countries, where any characterizing trait has been substituted by the purity of the color white. Thronged along the path to the temple and echoing the message at the temple gates “The past is past. The future is now,” the work tries to create a world without borders, orders or differences communicated through words and symbols inspired from the eight testimonies of Buddhism, revisited and transferred onto the fabric of the flags.
Drawn by the utopian ideal of One World without physical divisions, Galhotra attempts to replace, deconstruct and dissolve the religious and cultural differences, the physical and mental boundaries between nations and human beings informing the world geopolitical map.