Sowing the seeds of Change:

I grew up in a village in Kerala, where chilli, okra, melons, moringa, yam, ivy gourd etc grew abundantly all year around and banana trees lined up as walls and pineapple bushes were the divider fence. There was always seeds drying and pouches of newspapers with dried seeds on the kitchen table. My mother grew every seed she could lay her hand on. She would show me how the seeds had to be placed in the soil, knowing every seed has a top and a bottom. Some seeds need to be soaked in water before planting, some seeds need to be planted fresh from the fruit, some seeds need to be dried before they are planted. Some seeds sprout in a day, some sprout in a week and some sprout after a month. Every seed is different. We collect and save seeds and we plant them according to the rise and fall of the moon. The seeds that we sow, can grow only with just the right care. The crux is too much care or too little care. Traditional knowledge teaches us the fine art of balancing ourselves with nature.

I believe we are one with nature and that we are all connected and the connection starts with the seed. The seeds of life. A seed is a miracle, these seemingly dormant embryos hold the essence of life, as we know it. They are pure energy. Under the right circumstances, they erupt out of their dormancy and push their way out from underground and surprise us.

I grow rice over half an acre of land. I reap a yearly harvest of 1 tonne of rice. I use organic means to cultivate and I use the inputs from the land, to mulch and I use the excrement of my farm animals for fertilizing. I focus on crop rotation to keep the soil nutrient rich. I don’t sell my rice but I barter. The capitalistic model of exchange of goods would be reductionism; it dismisses my contribution towards a sustainable practice of growing food and sharing it with others.

“When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money.”- Cree Indian Prophecy

I enjoyed a 15-year career as a top fashion model in India and internationally, working with acclaimed designers. Despite breaking conventional beauty norms with my dark skin and short hair, I decided to shift gears. I left the modeling world at its peak to address issues that concerns women. I returned to school for a postgraduate degree in Visual Arts, focussing on Performance Art. This transition was driven by my desire to empower women and challenge prevailing beauty standards.

I believe that the sharing of certain experiences opens a window. Society as a listener will reframe their ideas, if you put them into a listening position. In the near universal model of subject construction, ‘women are to nature as men are to culture’. Women have the power to create subversion of the patriarchal language due to their existing position in the psychoanalytical model of subject construction.

My farm (The Art Farm) offers people the opportunity to not just come into nature and be one with nature but to strengthen themselves through transdisciplinary art practices and community development practices.