SHIFTING THE PARADIGM: Amalgamation of Ecology and Art in ASSAM
Abhilasha Pandey

The desire to give a visual form to personal feelings, communal implication, economic circumstances, spiritual dogmas, aesthetic principles and established agendas were instigated thousands of years ago. Ever since, humans have been creating art, developing numerous devices to manifest their cultures’ identities and of their surrounding environment. These impulses are conveyed throughout the history of art in various forms.


In this article, in the first segment, I would discuss some important art movements and practices which challenged the dominant paradigms of its times and contextualized their relation to the unification of art and ecology. The examples of this amalgamation are included in the second segment from a specific region of north-east India, Assam. These art movements made their way as a response to one another, the prevalent outlooks, belief systems, institutions, culture, and politics. A brief look at these endeavours will give better insights in understanding today’s ecological practices and how it’s connected to the different disciplines of art. Let us find out how the definition of Art has emerged and evolved over the centuries.

In the history of art, in the late 19th century, the art movement which accomplished in creating an upheaval to the prevalent notions was Impressionism. The artists moved out of the doors of their studio and provided a starting point for the Post-Impressionists, which in
turn, freed the Western Painting from traditional techniques and the approaches to the subject matter and significantly led to the definition of Form.


Constructivism which flourished in early 20th century, took an entirely new approach to make objects abolishing the traditional artistic concern with composition, and replaced it with ‘construction.’ ‘Form’ now emerges out in the domain of the public. It merged painting, sculpture, architecture into one integrated construction. From here, we discover the conception of ‘collaboration’ being amalgamated into the creative practice and the notion of space is being explored and expanded. Then comes the movement in the mid-20th century, which prizes ideas over the formal or visual components of artworks. Conceptual art is an amalgam of various tendencies rather than a tightly cohesive movement and took myriad forms. For conceptual artists, the articulation of an artistic idea serves as a work of art. It is rooted in Dada, an artistic and literary movement of early 20th century, for it was Marcel Duchamp who first asserted that the mental activity (“intellectual expression”) of the artist was of greater significance than the object created. It can be understood as part of a greater shift away from emphasizing the object-based work of art to purposely expressing cultural values of society at large. We find one of the paramount advancement in the art fraternity at this juncture- the authority of artwork is now shifted towards the viewer or the audience.

The Bauhaus, one of the most influential modernist art school of the 20th century, has led to the rethinking of the “fine arts” as the “visual arts”, and to a reconceptualization of the artistic process as more akin to research science. The stress on experiment and problem-solving which characterized the Bauhaus’s approach to teaching has proved to be enormously influential on contemporary art education. The concept that there is no hierarchy of culture and that art may borrow from any source has been one of the most influential characteristics of Pop art which came into prominence in the mid-20th century. Simultaneously, Feminist artists sought to create a dialogue between the viewer and the artwork through the inclusion of women’s perspective. Art was not merely an object for aesthetic admiration, but could also incite the viewer to question the social and political landscape, and through this questioning, possibly affect the world and bring change toward equality. By expressing themselves through non-traditional means, women sought to expand the definition of art and to incorporate a wider variety of artistic perspectives. This movement proved a great inspiration for contemporary art practices and in the elaboration of what ‘Art’ is.