उजाड़ (Ujaad) is an exhibition that reflects on displacement as both a physical and cultural condition, tracing the layered transformations brought about by urbanization and industrialization. Through the works of Deepakk and Yogesh Kumar, the exhibition examines how progress often leaves behind altered landscapes, disrupted ecologies, and fractured inherited traditions. Together, Deepakk and Yogesh reveal parallel narratives of loss and adaptation. While one traces the displacement of land and ecology, the other maps the erosion of craft and community. Ujaad becomes a space of reflection, asking what remains when progress reshapes both landscapes and lives.

In his recent works, Deepakk has begun incorporating the phrase “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” as a recurring conceptual marker, suggesting that something is always unfolding beneath the visible surface. In works such as Behind the Scene IV, Protest and Protection II, & Protest and Protection III, he draws from the temporary tin barriers surrounding construction sites, treating them as metaphors for concealment and ecological disruption. These structures hide not only the mechanics of development but also the stories of uprooted land, displaced animal habitats, and the fragile ecosystems erased in the process. Through repetition and layered imagery, Deepakk asks viewers to pay attention to the silent transformations embedded within urban growth.

Yogesh Kumar’s works engage with another form of displacement, one rooted in labor, material memory, and cultural inheritance. Coming from a hereditary potter community, Yogesh reclaims the language of clay through printmaking and installation, reflecting on the gradual decline of terracotta traditions under industrial production. In Nazarbattu II and Nazarbattu III, he employs motifs of pottery, domestic objects, and protective symbols as traces of collective memory and survival. In Identity Crisis II, fragments of potter identity are enclosed within acrylic boxes, suggesting how inherited knowledge systems have become trapped and overpowered by industrial modernity. Meanwhile, Golden Era I revisits the familiar gullak (piggy bank), transforming a childhood object into a reflection on value, nostalgia, and the fading presence of handmade clay objects in everyday life.

Together, Deepakk and Yogesh reveal parallel narratives of loss and adaptation. While one traces the displacement of land and ecology, the other maps the erosion of craft and community. Ujaad becomes a space of reflection, asking what remains when progress reshapes both landscapes and lives. Importantly, Ujaad avoids simplistic binaries between nature and development. The exhibition does not advocate a romantic return to an untouched past, nor does it reject the realities of urban growth and industrial progress. Instead, through Deepakk’s reflections on ecological displacement and Yogesh Kumar’s engagement with the erosion of craft traditions, it asks whether alternative models of coexistence are possible. Can development occur without ecological devastation? Can cities grow while preserving environmental integrity? Can industrial progress sustain the communities and inherited knowledge it often displaces? These questions resonate throughout the exhibition, transforming it into a space of critical reflection.

Image Courtesy: Artist
Video Courtesy: Google Earth Timelapse: Urban Expansion Around The World (YouTube); Artist.
Text Courtesy: Gaurav Kumar