Birds of Blackbuck National Park- illustration by Hemal Naik
Encounters with The Wild
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Encounters with the Wild is my humble attempt at exploring the art of storytelling. The stories are gathered while working with wild animals as a scientist. I grew up in India listening to my grandfather narrating Hindu mythological stories about gods with mystical powers and powerful animal companions. These stories have powerful narratives and have left a lasting impact on many generations of India. As cultures change, the relationship between the animals and humans has also changed. In this spirit, I want to capture new stories motivated by observing the day-to-day interactions between different plants, animals, and humans.
A large group of scientists like me travel across the globe collecting data on all sorts of things, including wildlife. In wildlife research, a large portion of projects relies on “local knowledge” which comes from teams of field assistants, local trackers, guides, cooks, drivers, forest guards, and other members of the community who entertain us scientists and are generally referred to as “support staff”. The science in “published articles” does not provide an adequate platform or space to rightfully credit the contributions of all the people involved in the process of knowledge production. In a way, it is a classic case of marginalization. With this art project, I am highlighting the contribution of the people who freely shared their knowledge with me by narrating their experiences. I am merely putting real-world events into words with open acknowledgment of the fact that “the knowledge I possess is indeed taken from many and I pass it along to my readers with the same sense of duty with which It was given to me”.
I am combining the short stories written as part of the project with my artwork and audio recordings from the field. My plan is to distribute the stories in multiple formats.
In 2023, We organized a storytelling event. I narrated some stories and we wrote postcards together. I used my sketches for printing postcards and distributed them to the attendees. The post-card series will be available from December 2023. More details to come…
What’s next?
In 2024, my plan is to record these stories and mix them with field recordings. The digital recordings will be available in English and Hindi (and possibly Gujarati) for an exhibition in 2025. They will also be available as QR codes with the postcards. I will go for 6 weeks to Schloss solitude to realize this project. Till then I keep collecting stories in the coming year.
My goal is to share the stories in digital and book format. We aim to reach a wide set of audiences in India and Germany with the outreach projects designed as part of the “fieldtrip” program.
