Third Text

10 November 2025

Akin Oladimeji

‘The Land Sings Back’, Drawing Room, London, 25 September – 14 December 2025

Manjot Kaur, The Convocation of Eagles (detail), 2025, gouache and watercolour on wasli paper, 60 x 90 cm, courtesy of the artist and mor charpentier, Paris

‘The Land Sings Back’ has been thoughtfully curated by Natasha Ginwala, the Artistic Director of Colomboscope, a contemporary arts festival and creative platform located in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The exhibition is a collaboration between Ginwala’s project and the Drawing Room. Colomboscope was founded by Ginwala in 2013 and has become a major hub for contemporary art in Sri Lanka, while the Drawing Room is a non-profit organisation established in Bermondsey, London in 2002 by three curators: Mary Doyle, Kate Macfarlane and Katharine Stout, with the aim of using exhibitions, workshops and their library on drawing to enable visitors to gain a greater awareness of themselves and the world.

The focus of this exhibition is on works that emphasise a harmonious co-existence with nature as opposed to the extractivism that characterises colonialism and capitalism. It links thirteen artists with Asian, African and Caribbean heritages, looking at how they utilise drawing not simply to illustrate but use the medium in a bid to engage with social history, precolonial knowledge and environmentalist thought. Shiraz Bayjoo, Lavkant Chaudhary, Manjot Kaur, Otobong Nkanga and Charmaine Watkiss have created new work in response to the curator’s invitation, while the curator herself made selections from previous works by the other artists.

Otobong Nkanga is recognised in the catalogue as a significant inspiration. Her impact on eco-activism is remarkable, seamlessly blending environmental, ethical and social issues within her dynamic multisensory and interdisciplinary artistic practice and frequently connecting aesthetics with ecological justice, inviting contemplation around the pressing matters of planetary degradation and exploitative economies. Over the years, through her installations, performances and tapestries, Nkanga has delved into the intricate life cycles of land, minerals and resources, highlighting their extraction, usage and transfer between the Global South and Global North. Her work reframes the environmental crisis not as a standalone issue but rather as deeply entangled with the histories of colonial exploitation, displacement and capitalism. Projects like Tsumeb Fragments (an installation consisting of photographs, video and raw materials, like debris) poignantly reflect on the transformation of Namibia’s Green Hill, historically mined with care by the Ovambo people, then ravaged by colonial industries, thus presenting a nuanced critique of resource depletion. By connecting ecological harm to sensory experiences – engaging smell, touch and sound – Nkanga infuses environmental activism with a sense of corporeal and emotional resonance. She has contributed two drawings: in Opulence there is a close up of what appears to be a giant granadilla, a fruit native to Latin America, on a vine, while in Subsidence, created in 2025, a woman is depicted lying on her side on the ground in what appears to be a green, lush land that is subsiding. Her eyes are shut and she is cradling a bunch of giant granadillas. Nkanga conjures a mournful atmosphere, a world in which care for the environment is paramount, in which planetary healing needs to take place.

Subsidence, 2025, acrylic and carbon on paper, 28.8 x 21 cm, courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery

The exhibition opens with rarely displayed works from the 1980s and 1990s by Lado Bai, an Indigenous elder of the Bhil community in India. In Peeple ka ped, a four-legged animal painted green is nibbling from a low hanging branch of a tree festooned with birds. Dots – some white, some purple – are placed all over the tree, from the roots to the tips of the branches. Images such as these from the artist depict ‘environmental ethics’ that honour sacred conservation principles while beautifully intertwining daily human experiences with the essence of animals and plants. ^[1]

Lavkant Chaudhary is a cultural organiser from the Terai region of Nepal, which went through a troubling era of violence and turmoil after 2006, largely fuelled by ethnic groups, especially the Madhesi people, who were advocating for enhanced rights, political representation and greater provincial autonomy. Chaudhary highlights the profound connection between humans and animals within the Tharu community. As a keeper of unofficial archives and inspired by matrilineal Godana (tattoo) traditions, his detailed drawings on handmade paper scrolls evoke Indigenous rites and environmental movements. Banor: Rituals of Resistance and Reclamation (2025) reflects the biannual Tharu prayers that symbolically unite water, land and forest. These rituals not only safeguard crops and define territories through shamanic songs, but they also embody a cosmology that connects humans and nature. On the very large work on display, on parchment paper used for sacred purposes in Nepal, he has drawn animals and their sculptural equivalents at the top of the drawing. There is a man in a kneeling position who seems to be praying; in front of him is a flame that is part of a traditional lamp on a patch of grass. In the background is a map showing towns and cities in the country, delineating the idea that the prayers are for Chaudhary, his town, his country.

London-based artist Charmaine Watkiss’s Plant Warriors (2021– ) features empowered portraits that celebrate African–Caribbean women as vital sources of nourishment and strength. The women have a deep awareness of the healing properties and spiritual significance of botanicals like ginger, sage, castor and burdock. Often referred to as ‘Obeah women’, they practise Obeah, a spiritual tradition rooted in the Caribbean and West Africa which involves connecting with spirits, harnessing supernatural powers, and employing rituals for various purposes such as healing, seeking justice or providing protection. Both the men and women who practise Obeah offer diverse services to their clients and have historically held significant positions as community leaders, healers and spiritual advisors in societies that have been shaped by slavery and its aftermath. ^[2]  Coffee has been used as a layer in the background of the drawings, with watercolours used on top. The reference to coffee effectively evokes how deals were made in coffehouses in London in the time of transatlantic slavery, and how coffee plantations thrived on the enslaved labour.

The powerful compositions of Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum intertwine elements of mythology, remembered landscapes and non-linear dream realms. Her ensemble of characters showcases strong feminine influences while drawing upon African literature, auteur cinema and personal experience. Sunstrum has an alter ego, Asme, who has featured in various paintings over the years, and The Dream II (mae) (2023) offers a poignant portrayal of Black womanhood through a dual image of Asme surrounded by vibrant foliage.

The Dream II (mae), 2023, crayon, pencil and oil on linen, 132.2 x 129.7 x 2.2cm (unframed), courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Collections Fund at Frieze 2023/24

Jasmine Nilani Joseph leads community-oriented field research in Sri Lanka’s northern peninsula. Her installation DS Waiting Room (2024), commissioned by the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka, contains eighteen folders filled with pen-on-paper drawings, which narrate the stories of displaced families the artist encountered in Vavuniya, her hometown. These chronicles reveal the experiences of dispossession during wartime, as well as the consequences of poorly designed government policies on minority rights. The installation resembles government-issued folders and property deeds, conveying both the harshness of bureaucratic violence and the crucial need to archive socio-economic relationships to territory. It was a fascinating experience wearing gloves provided by the gallery to view the works in the folders. Most of the titles of the works were in Tamil. The artist explained that she had spent time interviewing members of families who had been waiting decades to reclaim their land, and that the titles were not in English because they were quotes from the interviews she had conducted. I was doubtful of this strategy until I was reminded that modern visitors have the option of using an app to easily translate the foreign words.

Jasmine Nilani Joseph, DS Waiting Room (detail), 2024, mixed media installation: wooden benches, clock, 18 pen and ink drawings and 18 paper folders, courtesy of the artist and The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sri Lanka

Exploring the colonial legacies left by the Dutch, British and French, from the fertility of plantation fields to the serenity of botanical gardens, Shiraz Bayjoo’s Botanical Shrines (2024–2025) resonates with the interconnected tales of extractivism, traversing through time. This collection serves as a tapestry of memory, showcasing heirlooms rooted in nature’s treasures. Delicate seeds, intriguing pods and intricate shells arrayed on wooden altars stand as testaments to survival and resilience found within maroon communities. The vibrant, reimagined botanical drawings invite viewers to shift their focus away from the confines created by plant hunters and colonial administrators. In the exhibition catalogue, the artist is quoted as stating that the Mauritian forest:

…rapidly vanished in the 17th–18th century, making way for the plantation, and reducing the sanctuary afforded to the maroons who escaped them. We, the descendants of the communities, through the misery of slavery and indentiture, displaced to these tranquil islands, shared it all too briefly with the true indigenous of our islands, the Dodo, the Blue Parrot, the Red Wren, the Hibiscus Fragilis, or the Lonely Palm who bore the first irrevocable erasure. ^[3]

This poignant quote underlines the adverse impacts of humankind on nature, the insatiable demand for profit and an inexorable lust for wealth. The two images named Don’t Forget Me are highlights: flowers are painted with acrylic in dark colours onto Panama fabric, with a lush appearance due to their sheen. There are several layers to these works, with crocheted cloth and woven seashells draped on top of them: maximalist works with a strong impact.  

Shiraz Bayjoo, Botanical Shrines, 2024, mixed media and found objects, dimensions variable, courtesy of the artist and 421 Arts Campus, Dubai, photo by Ismail Noor

Anupam Roy shows six drawings from a series made between 2022 and 2023 entitled Time is Sloshing. On expansive tarpaulins, he employs satirical and surreal protest imagery that captures the pressing realities of land acquisition and the civic movements opposing mining and dam initiatives in rural Bengal and various other regions of India. The containers in them hint at something deadly about to be unleashed on the landscape. Joydeb Roaja showcases four captivating pieces in the exhibition, three of which belong to his 2024 series, The Future of Indigenous Peoples. In this series, he masterfully evokes the intertwined relationship between land and wildlife. Trees with their gnarled trunks and ancient branches emerge from the heads of both women and men; elders and infants embrace one another, encircled by insect-like figures that symbolise the overwhelming presence of armies at their feet. Roy’s exquisite linework beautifully depicts traditional Risa and Riha attire, adorned with intricately beaded and silver ancestral jewellery – an effort to preserve living traditions, despite the tide of Bengali nationalism and the wave of mass tourism. Amidst it all, whirring cameras and overhead helicopters in the images mimic the behaviour of swarming insects.

Joydeb Roaja, The Future of Indigenous Peoples #3, 2024, ink on paper, 138 x 114 cm, courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary

Manjot Kaur contributes works from a series titled Chtonic Beings – Mythological Assemblies For Multispecies Futures (2025), in which she creates femme hybrid entities that are a combination of endangered animals and females. Resembling deities, the point being made is that these creatures can help to illustrate a world in which the rapacious consumption of the world’s resources has been reversed and balance has been restored.

Rupaneethan Pakkiyarajah’s Border images depict abstract forms alongside the seeds, flowering plants and land contours, and the ponds, rivers and lagoons he grew up around. This is done to reflect the effects of environmental degradation. His installations consist of miniature round or oblong abstract ceramics that bring to mind snail shells or cowrie shells. Beside them are fifty-two cards on which the artist has drawn plants or vegetables.

Rupaneethan Pakkiyarajah, Border III, 2024, watercolour and ink on paper, 14.7 x 21.5 cm, courtesy of the artist

Anushka Rustomji’s Flesh and Foliage series (2023–2024) beautifully illustrates the tales of creation and a diverse array of fertility goddesses from various Asian cultures, captured in stunning monochromatic graphite. These artworks weave ancient stories rooted in nature's wisdom, symbolising both the sacred and the terrestrial. The drawings, which highlight matrilineal healing practices alongside the plant species they feature, are profoundly captivating.

Finally, Arulraj Ulaganathan has a suite devoted to him in the exhibition. In a room lined with tea dust and cards used, presumably by managers, to document how much tea was being produced per day on a plantation, there are also drawings marked by ink and tea stains on brown paper. They shed light on the land dispossession experienced by the Malaiyaga Tamil community who were forcibly removed from their ancestral homes in southern India by the British, who relocated them to work on the tea plantations in the central highlands of Sri Lanka. This recent series reflects the transformation of wild forests into the green slopes of tea estates, while Into the Ceylon Railway (2024) depicts animals in a mountainous area and highlights the consequences of railroad development.

The exhibition, along with its public programme, thoughtfully addresses a variety of important questions through research-driven methods, focusing on multispecies ecologies, coloniality and environmental justice. Forcing us to consider how dependent we are on the earth and its resources, it deserves to be experienced by all.

^[1]     See Natasha Ginwala, ‘Earth Fabulations’, in The Land Sings Back, exhibition catalogue, Drawing Room, London, 2025, p 12

^[2]     See ‘Obeah and Gender’, on the ‘ecda’ (‘early Caribbean digital archive’) section of the Northeastern University Library website: https://ecda.northeastern.edu/home/about-exhibits/obeah-narratives-exhibit/obeah-and-gender/

^[3]     Shiraz Bayjoo, quoted in The Land Sings Back, op cit, p 28

Akin Oladimeji is a critic, lecturer and writer. He is currently in the first year of a PhD at University College London (UCL) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.