- Climate change is affecting the work of performing artists as well as creative artists in South Asia.
- A July conference in Dhaka brought scholars and performers together to discuss the nascent studies of the intersection of climate change and culture.
- Artists are using their art to address the climate crisis. Some art forms are being lost because of climate impacts.
- The work of young art students shows how nature is infused in art from an early age.
DHANGMARI, Bangladesh — In late May, elementary school children rushed up and down the worn footpaths between their homes in Dhangmari, giggling and showing off small clay sculptures. One girl held out a ceramic bird, her arms outstretched like wings. A boy crouched in the door frame of his house, slowly rolling flattened clay petals to fashion a rose.
It was the final examination day in art class at the Gora Dhangmari Forest Primary School, a small schoolhouse on the Pashur River about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Khulna. It was hot, nearly 38° Celsius (100° Fahrenheit). A month earlier, schools nationwide had been closed due to unprecedented heat.
Bithka Ray, who teaches Bangla and math, and Anima Bachar, who teaches English and science, switch off teaching art with the other two teachers at the school. The students are free to make any sculpture they like, though the figurines lining the desks have one thing in common: nature.
Katha Mondol, a girl in class five, cradled a clay coconut in her hands. Her neighbor has a coconut tree, she said, and she likes to drink from the coconuts. Her teachers said that Mondol’s own home has a coconut tree, but after prolonged exposure to saline water, the tree no longer produces coconuts. Increasingly saline water and soil is an issue that has plagued Bangladesh for years.
“We enjoy teaching art, and our satisfaction comes from [the students’] happiness,” Bachar said.
With its lattice of rivers and tropical coastline, Bangladesh is among the nations most vulnerable to climate change. In recent years, the country has experienced both obvious and subtle climate change impacts, including increased intensity and frequency of flooding, rising water salinity and a dramatic loss of biodiversity.
National policymakers focus on the economic and development impacts of climate change. But the subject occupies the national psyche, expressed in the creative activities of artists and art students alike. Like Mondol’s clay coconut and the tree that no longer produces fruit, the impacts of climate change are shaping art even as they reshape the world
In Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka, about 200 km (125 mi) northeast from Dhangmari, a group of scholars at the University of Dhaka are working to make the connections between art and climate change more explicit.
Syed Manzoorul Islam, a writer, literary scholar and professor emeritus at University of Dhaka, says that climate change is more present in Bangladesh than elsewhere.
“Unlike in the West, the effects of climate change are more brutal, affecting directly the lives of our people,” Islam said.
Some artists are using their art directly to address the climate crisis. But some art forms are changing because of the crisis, he said, while others are becoming lost.
Festivals that have traditionally used dance, theater and music to celebrate harvest and paddy collection — festivals such as Nabanno and Jatra-Pala — have disappeared from some areas over the years as cash-strapped and climate-stressed farmers have little time and money for ceremony, according to a study by Md. Borhan Uddin published in the International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology in 2022.
Theater has also been used to address climate change. The Bangladesh chapter of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature created a participatory play called “Ebar Rana Bhai Bolchen,” or “Let’s Hear Rana Bhai,” which taught school children about climate change issues and adaptive measures.
It’s not only the performing arts that are affected. Soil scarcity has made it more difficult for ceramic artists to access clay, humidity wears on the natural fibers in tapestries and increasing temperatures alter the drying time of oil paints, changing how artists work with the medium.
In July, scholars, artists and students gathered in Dhaka for the Third Symposium of the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance Study Group on Music and Allied Arts of Greater South Asia. The University of Dhaka dance department, led by classical Kathak dancer and scholar Monira Parveen, hosted the event, meant for people to share their research and concerns about the theme, “The Climate Crisis and its Impact on the Arts.”
This council for traditions was formed more than 70 years ago and operates with 27 smaller study groups specific to different regions and disciplines. Natalie Sarrazin, a professor at SUNY Brockport in New York, is secretary of the study group on music and allied arts of greater South Asia. In addition to publishing research, the council also consults on arts and culture issues with UNESCO.
By focusing on South Asia, this year’s symposium in Dhaka has given artists and arts researchers in the country an international forum on the topic they wouldn’t otherwise have, Sarrazin said. Scholars in Bangladesh chose to focus on the presentation of research on arts and the climate crisis, Sarrazin said.
Art and climate change is an emerging field of study, said Sayeem Rana, an associate professor for the department of music and liaison for the council. Increasingly, artists are expressing climate change impacts in their work, but this thinking is still new for them, he said.
Many of the students in his own music department don’t know much about art and the climate crisis because it’s not taught in the curriculum, Rana said. But Bangladeshi people are very curious. He said that hearing what others from around the world say inspires curiosity about it too.
Rana’s own research focuses on the decline of pattachitra, a traditional style of scroll painting in parts of India and Bangladesh known for its detailed narratives and folktales that are sung aloud by the painters, or patuas. There are current efforts by NGOs and other organizations working to revive this art, Rana said. His recent work explores how those organizations integrate climate change considerations into this revival. Previous studies of pattachitra in 2022 documented climate crises and environmental themes in the scroll paintings.
Many art forms of India, Bangladesh and South Asia are closely entwined with the environment. Some ragas, which are Indian music rhythms, are time specific, intended to be performed at certain parts of the day, Islam said. But as the climate changes, the days get fuzzy, he said. The mornings aren’t as clear and peaceful as they used to be when certain ragas are to be played.
Parveen, a Kathak dancer, said that Kathak developed in three different areas, and styles of the dance can be distinguished by what area they come from because of the natural environment.
Kathak danced in Lucknow, which is relatively warm and humid, has a much softer style because of its sunny and temperate weather, she said, as opposed to Kathak danced in Jaipur, which has a rougher style, invoking the more arid, rocky landscape.
And when these environments change, the art forms that reflect the environments change as well, Parveen said.
Islam and Parveen said they hoped the conference would increase awareness of the link between climate change and culture and create opportunities for scholars, researchers and students from around the world to collaborate and exchange ideas.
“How the direct impact of climate change is affecting art, music and other forms of cultural activities is something that will take some time to assess,” Islam said. “The effects are just beginning.”
It is common for business and science departments to hold international conferences like this, Parveen said, but this is a new endeavor for the dance department and the faculty of the arts.
The end date of the conference coincided with the 10th anniversary of the founding of the university’s dance department, the first of its kind in higher education in Bangladesh, making this symposium even more of an accomplishment for the young department, Parveen said. They hope to continue this work in the future.
In Dhangmari, as the future artists rushed into the schoolhouse to present their clay sculptures, Mdmendei Hasom, a boy in class five, held out a crocodile, built on a slab of wood and adorned with date seeds as scales. He started to tell a story, that just a day earlier, a crocodile had swum up on shore and eaten a monkey. Hasom saw it all, he said, but he wasn’t scared.
A gaggle of other students swarmed Hasom to hear his story, holding their own clay crocodiles around him, like a bask of the reptiles gathered in the sun.
Mimkhatum, a girl in class four, sat on the steps of the schoolhouse putting the finishing touches on her clay magpie. She placed it in the back of the classroom with the other clay birds, crocodiles, roses, coconuts and mangoes.
Villages of riverine Bangladesh, such as Dhangmari, are struggling to thrive for numerous reasons, many related to climate change and the economic and migratory challenges it contributes to. Despite emerging hardships, Islam said, and the students and teachers demonstrated, people continue to create in harmony with the place they live.
“Even in the most adverse situations, even in the most ultra radical on the right side, art will survive and continue its function,” Islam said. “So, therein lies the hope.”
Banner image: Students at the Gora Dhangmari Forest Primary School display clay sculptures they made for a final project in art class. Image by Clayton Murphy.
This story is published through a collaboration between Mongabay and the University of Montana’s School of Journalism. Students traveled to Bangladesh in May 2024 to document the effects of climate change. You can read more about the program here.
Citations:
Uddin, M. B. (2022). Perception of climate change in Bangladesh: Local beliefs, practices and responses. International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology, 6(1). doi:10.1186/s41257-022-00073-w
Basu, P. (2022). Music and Intermediality in trans-border performances: Ecological responses in Patachitra and <i>Manasamangal</i>. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 45(6), 1000-1020. doi:10.1080/00856401.2022.2121477