“I make only 50 percent of the work when I put my sculptures into the water, the sea in fact completes the other half of the work for me.” Rokesh Patil’s sculptures form a ‘local armada’ that he prepares, like a dish, offered first to the sea for its onslaught as a gift in return for what the sea has offered to his community (the Kolis of Madh and Arnala) since his birth. We observe that onslaught through time, by the corals that attach themselves to his playful sculptures, no longer pristine. The works flip the impulse of fisherfolk and seafarers that need to always scrape their boats clean. Here the coral is invited, almost as a collaborator. The abstract symbols (a table, a dinner plate, a fishing boat embodied as fish, mountains in the backdrop, the fresh catch) are captured in a new series of works using black acrylic (as indicative of night), CAD designs and delicate print-work that starkly reminding us that this falls in the working timeline of his community. The sculptures are not prepared for the gallery, they have already inhabited a timeline outside of it, but this fleet showcased allows him to code a different “finish” to each work, not one of maintenance but one of evidence, prepared for this particular outing at FULCRUM. Rokesh’s parents hailed from the Arnala and the Madh island fishing communities and hence his lineage and situated art practice (at his home/site on the island of Arnala) is derived from two of the oldest indigenous inhabitants of what is now Mumbai and Greater Mumbai metropolitan areas. The conceptual framework of his practice; from his background in painting and printmaking to his instinctual sculptural practice in situ brings a variety of human, non-human (animal) and a speculative enmeshing of two worlds that can no longer stay isolated from each other. We are presented with work that locates us on a scale of ecological crossover/damage that we are inflicting on this planet; one that highlights increasing unavoidable phenomena that bring the not-so pelagic clashing between nature and its inhabitants’ manufactured detritus. As we find microplastics in the fish we consume, marine debris in the waters we move in, and contaminants in food supplies we extract from our seas, these works begin to ask us to reckon with that balance; of how can we sustain a mode of living that prevents the current excesses of our so-called civilised habits and our modern plunder. Rokesh’s introductory solo brings us many concepts and media, tackled each in place of what his practice demands; sculptures in the tide pools of his home island enlightening us to an ecology that is morphing, downtime from that work allowing him to practice as a painter and printmaker, time used judiciously as fishing communities do when the monsoon season hits; and an innate and infinite curiosity to keep working with his lived material reality. A developing practice like his hence demands our attention and deserves our admiration. As I have been a keen audience for the past few years, I write to place some context from his works called BUR on the fishing-village island Arnala (of which he is a part of and currently resides) and a cross section of works from that practice that we see here showcased at FULCRUM under the umbrella of INDAAN. The conceptual framework of ‘Indaan’ (explained later) anchors this show but it is critical to understand the heart of his practice through a series of shows called ‘Bur' leading up to this day. In 2023, I was introduced to his eponymously named show called BUR (which I learnt later he likened to the noise made by a boat motor on the water, (Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….as mimicked by his very young niece, Dhravya aged only a year and a half at the time.) It also became the name of his first independent solo; named simply ‘Dhravya’s BUR’. The name stuck. His artistic journey began with painting (as an under-graduate), printmaking (for his Masters) and yet for BUR, he used sculpture as his choice of medium when tackling issues at his place of a developing praxis. He has since launched three more independent ‘BUR’ shows totalling four. I say independent as they were exactly that. Self-styled, self-organised, self-made art exhibitions at the water’s edge, on his home island to the north of Mumbai, off the coast of Virar. There was only some social media outreach done by friends and MSU Baroda classmates. At the time, there was no white cube space, just an open invitation. What caught my eye was the text on the flyer/poster - especially the tide timing. BUR - II - ‘A show on the seashore’ Arnala Island, Virar - Mumbai Tide timings: 12.00pm-6pm, 8 March - 12 March [2024] 5 April - 7 April [2024] 4 May - 6 May [2024] As you see, the show was time dependant. It is not everyday that when you live in Bombay/Mumbai do you get to see an exhibition in the direction opposite to where one usually goes to see art, (gallery - based anyways) literally. i.e on the outskirts of north Bombay. The twin city of Vasai-Virar, an agglomeration of multiple urban centres dates back to what was a thriving port at Sopara around 600 BCE. The region is mainly known for its commercial fishing and agricultural production. The choked-out city of Mumbai looks north to occupy larger tracks of pastoral land in the nearby burgeoning city to offload its struggling infrastructure. Fisherfolk in the off- season i.e. the rainy season switch to other agro-based jobs or familiar skill intensive activities to supplement incomes. Against this backdrop, Rokesh is an artist whose birth and background place him right on the anvil of expansionist development from the island city. Rokesh’s sculptures from BUR are hybrids of marine lifeforms fused to ships; fused to form entities that speak to their surroundings. He makes these sculptures from found driftwood, scrap-metal or other materials available to him, either through boat repair or non-recycled waste. They seem a natural source for his material search, as it is found within the vicinity of his immediate surroundings. The ships and submarines are named after all the children in the village. For his very first BUR ‘exhibition’, his entire village; elders included, came to view what their island son had made, and word has spread to other areas near Arnala as well since then. A section of these works from BUR are recreated at FULCRUM on the largest wall on the left as you enter the gallery. On his home island Arnala, right by the site of the famous historical Arnala Killa (Fort), lie a series of tide pools (deep and shallow) that are formed across the rocky section of the southern beach. Rokesh studied these terrains. He probably played in these tide pools during his childhood as well. The mode in which his hybrid ship-fish sculptures are installed in these tide pools, foregrounds the popular gill-net fishing technique employed by the fishing folks along the coast of Maharashtra, off 20 nautical miles from the shore. This involves the divers from the community driving wooden pegs into the sea bed, to hoist nets that are kept lowered during high-tide and raised at the time of low-tide to enable catching fishes. He installed his hybrid ship-fish sculptures into the sea at these tide pools, and we watched them magically appear or disappear within a fixed bracket of time, i.e. the tide at that time. The sculptures hence also make the tide very discernible, in a true visual sense; the only other way we tangibly watch the pull of the tide is on a beach or at a jetty. Moreover, Rokesh studies lunar charts - new moon and full moon days (Amavasya & Poornima) as it is particularly on these days that we will be able to view the tide pools receding and the submerged artworks appearing and disappearing. He says he puts them in for four months in order to access and “attract” specific kinds of corals that will attach themselves to the art work (at specific locations on the coastline along the island.) He selected another section of the beach (not the rocky tide-pool), and more robust material to build another sculpture that gets the brunt of the tide coming in from the open channel between Arnala and Virar, but this piece allows or rather attracts a different breed of coral, which he does by design. In order to do this successfully, he had to strategically study the lunar charts, select a certain tide-pool that can be accessed, walked to, and safely viewed, observed and selected one that fit the scale of work he imagined as well. The works had to be protected when underwater in order not to be swept away by currents. The next BUR period as he says begins in January 2027. INDAAN ‘Indaan’, as Rokesh explains refers to an indigenously passed down system (and word) of triangulating particular locations, shared within the community. It’s a mapping by “being in” as opposed to mapping “by viewing” system. Currently GPS has digitised this Indaan system to cartographical coordinates and the community has adopted it and taken to it well, but it used to be an olden, line-of-sight rough triangulation that marked spaces and locations that were either static (for eg. submerged large rocks that could tear fishing nets) to dynamic (moving shoals of fish that perhaps abandon a no longer suitable habitat). An ‘Indaan’ was/is used to locate phenomena as varied as submerged boats, specific tide pools, casting nets and patterns of ecology that only ancient communities tap into. At FULCRUM, Rokesh presents a small cross-section of these works, his ‘Indaan' as he explains is his triangulated reference point which centres not only his life but his practice. The tide pools now become the ‘Indaan’ for others who visit it, to set their own frame of reference, in a fractured and ecologically sensitive space. ‘Charcha’ [Discussion] and ‘Donger’ [Mountain] suspend abstracted forms that are retrofitted parts of the boat. ‘Charcha’ also alludes to the apparition of a table in any vacant part of the boat (and in some of the works) when it is out at sea, be it above the engine, or elsewhere and the obvious gathering place for meals and discussions. It is also a new turn in Rokesh’s practice as he is experimenting with black acrylic and monotype printing or imprinting the table cloth lace pattern by heating it, or laser etching the elevation CAD drawing of a dredger ship which heralds other technologies of the sea that are beginning to impose on their everyday. The motif of the table plays an important role and keeps reappearing in this current set of works. ‘Submarine window’ is a series of meticulously drawn miniatures of submarines tables , abstracted boat parts and even Dali-esque elongated propellors. We view them under a series of fisheye lenses (that do mimic them) but also remind us of roe. ‘Khane mein kya hai’ [What’s there to eat?] places the motif of the decorative table alongside probably the catch of the day in a series of 4 works. Rokesh’s practice gives us a glimpse into how indigenous systems functioned and were mapped and maintained, time-tested and extremely sophisticated modes of replenishing and supplying catch from the seas, and his work is situated right at the intersection of its being in harm’s way. His work also becomes testament and bears witness to our shrinking ecological footprint, for a city undergoing uncontrollable expansion. As a cautionary tale, I feel his practice is fragile as the ecosystem he espouses and his is a practice I worry about. The longevity of it, the context of a work so rooted to one’s own existence and its surroundings. Yet Rokesh manages to inhabit a fairly engaged place within it so far. The monsoon period is the only time he can make work away from the island as his works are packed up and put away since the weather is rough. The stronger currents would wash away the work. Every once in a while, for an isolating praxis like his, these very necessary excursions can bear fruit. Currently when he’s not making work on the island, Rokesh heads to his friend’s studio to do printmaking work which he is also proficient at. And this stepping away from the island is what I feel he requires, to encounter new scales of engagement, even ones like this exhibition space at FULCRUM we see before us. Returning briefly to the works at the water’s edge; I’d like to add that when viewed in its own time and favourable conditions, Rokesh presents a very unique “exhibition space”; one that veritably disappears if not viewed at the right time. These works links planetary, ecological, geographical and cosmological movements very succinctly in a 15 minute window that coalesce and plainly remind us that everything is momentary; fleeting, and conditions if coerced and trifled with, can have real time consequences to our surroundings, our homes, our livelihoods. The magic hour is on hand and sometimes, if we are not on time, we miss the years of work that have gone into presenting us with that window of opportunity. This can either jolt us into action or push us into submission, however we choose to be affected by what is presented to us. [My thanks to Rokesh Patil and Ayesha Aggarwal, to Shruti Ramlingaiah and Madhu Das for accompanying me on that first day and to George Jacob for inputs.]