Forestial Flock

‘Forestial Flock’ listens out for the ecopoetics inherent in Bhakti and Sufi verses, tracing the significance of the forest within contemporary queer-feminist worlds. Since times immemorial generations of women have flocked to the forest to gather herbs, hold sacraments, supplement their income, hide, escape, or just gather their thoughts. In her book, Caliban and the Witch (2004), Silvia Federici underlines the special dependency of working-class women on forests and consequently the disproportionate diminution of their autonomy with the enclosure of the said purlieus. The ancient alliance extends well into the present, judging from the presence of women at the forefront of environmental movements like Women of Nigeria and Chipko. Closer to home we have heard whispers of witchcraft acting as an anti-caste, anti- colonial force in the west much as the figure of Bonbibi did in the east.

Wilderness holds a special place in the politically sensuous expressions of Sufi and Bhakti mystics. Not only did it offer refuge to these social dissidents, but it also allowed them room to live out their unique brand of mystical politics, inspiring an anarchist idiom that could be yoked to the enterprise of social critique/reorganisation. Wilderness thus served both as a cover for these bewildered bodies as well as a conduit for their rewilding. Listening to their quatrains one wonders whether it is the wandering mystic eulogising the wilderness or the wilderness conspiring through her.

The exhibition invites the audience to explore some of these links between wilderness, poetry, and freedom.

– Adwait Singh