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How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015-2018

Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and PVC transfer on acrylic

22.5 x 32 inches, Jampali open cast mining project, mine surface working plan, Raigarh.

Graph: CO2 emissions from coal-based thermal power plants

How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015-2018
Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and PVC transfer on acrylic
22.5 x 32 inches, Baroud open cast mine surface plan as on 2016.
Graph: Coal India production, SECL (South Eastern Coal Fields Ltd), Raigarh area, India

How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015-2018

Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and PVC transfer on acrylic

22.5 x 32 inches, Final mine closure plan of quartzite mines, OCL India Ltd, Rajgangpur, Odisha.

Graph: Fossil fuel and cement emissions (CO2) in India between 1980 and 2017 based on monthly data to date.

 

How Perfect Perfection Can Be, 2015-2018

Watercolour drawing on Wasli paper and PVC transfer on acrylic

22.5  x 32 inches, Vandana Vidhyut Ltd Churri at Churri village, with ash dump areas, Korba.

Graph: Electricity generation from coal-based thermal power plants

How Perfect Perfection Can Be (2015-2018), a series of drawings explore the relationship between nature and the asymmetries caused by human driven environmental changes and urbanization’s limitless desire to lure human psyche at the cost of abusing the planet earth by extracting its soul. They graph the human ‘ability to manipulate the environment to produce a favourable microclimate for them’. Looking at how natural resources are appropriated Altaf recreates the maps of coal mining sites in Chhattisgarh state (where she has been in close contact with the indigenous communities resisting deforestation and coal mining) and reconstructs certain elements through superimposing  mediums like PVC transfer and acrylic that represent the artificial  elements over the natural.

While inquiring into climate changes caused by the anthropogenic interventions, Altaf says “The point here is that - Humans, as mentioned above with the ability to manipulate the environment to produce a suitable microclimate for them, began exploiting natural resources beyond their own imagination of vanquishing nature… have overlooked the Earth processes, Earth history, climate and fossil history.” 

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