Format/Structure

Since 2019, The Mangrove School Project, led by Prof. Vinita Damodaran and Dr. Anindita Saha, has empowered Indian Sundarbans youth and tiger-widow households. Through creative skills, sustainable craft, and outreach, it fosters livelihood resilience and environmental understanding.

Long Abstract

The Indian Sundarbans, a dynamic landscape where land and sea converge with the sky, is shaped by the intricate interplay between forest and river systems. Since November 2019, 'The Mangrove School Project' has shed light on the interconnected ecological health, tracing the long history of interventions across land, forest, and water, while foregrounding the lived experiences of children and youth (ages 12–21) within the Indian Sundarbans.

This exhibition will delineate the visual narratives of the marginalized children and youth, who reflect on their lived realities and their parents’ ongoing struggle for survival. Through participatory visual methodologies, these young voices reveal how hydro-social spaces in the Sundarbans are being destabilized by technological interventions enacted under the guise of socio-economic development. Their stories warn of an impending erasure—not only of livelihoods but of entire habitats—underscoring an urgent need to rethink dominant developmental paradigms and to reimagine the delta through the lens of ecological justice, while reshaping this fragile deltaic region.