Keeping the flock together: Artist Niharika Rajput’s upcoming projects

A permanent installation, an app and a play. Conservation artist Niharika Rajput on what to look forward to at this year’s edition of the Ladakh Bird Festival

August 03, 2018 01:29 pm | Updated August 06, 2018 10:59 am IST

In September, when temperatures in Ladakh plummet below -10 degrees C, Delhi-based artist Niharika Rajput will be busy getting children and adults interested in the rich avian treasure of the land. She will speak to them about the elegant Black-necked crane and why it is important to protect it. The sessions are part of her Art for Wildlife Conservation Project, which has completed two editions so far.

As an Army kid, Rajput made quite a few places home. She grew up in Army cantonments amid butterflies and insects. That love spilled over to birds when her family lived in Tibri Cantt, Gurdaspur, Punjab. “I was used to seeing pigeons and crows, and then, when I was about 10, I saw this spectacle in blue, red and white. I grabbed an Olympus camera that I did not know to operate, and clicked. We had a good laugh later — I’d forgotten to zoom, and the bird was a tiny speck in the photo,” says the 26-year-old known for her handcrafted miniature bird sculptures.

That White-throated kingfisher triggered a life-long love affair with birds. Today, Rajput, is also a conservation artist, who has fused her interest in the winged creatures and art to drive home the message of conservation, and she bats for them using a variety of materials and infinite patience.

Finding ground

In 2012, as an intern with People Tree in Delhi, she worked alongside graduates from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad; one of them taught her to make the simple structure of a bird using epoxy putty (a popular brand is M-Seal). “I built birds for them for a year and knew this was something I wanted to do,” recalls Rajput who spent her time there researching, watching documentaries and hitting the outdoors. “I played the documentary Birds Of Paradise by Tim Laman and Ed Scholes on loop. Global warming was a cause I identified with,” says the literature graduate.

Rajput, who now works using pastel sheets, ivory sheets and white tag board, says it took a while before she could settle on a medium.“I wanted my replicas to be as realistic as possible. I experimented for a year with different materials such as fibre, thread, metal and clay, before finalising paper.” This also meant more birding trips to catch birds preening, in flight and while perching. “It’s not possible to get all angles in a photo or documentary. I had to see them in person, spot their behaviour if wanted to make realistic art,” she says, adding how her birds are usually caught in movement, which has resulted in quite a few asking if they are taxidermy birds.

Her first project in 2015 involved building a pair of Hen harriers, following an appeal she saw by Birders Against Wildlife Crime in the UK. “The logistics did not work out, and I could not raise any money by selling them, but there was no turning back.”

Ladakh calling

A 2016 residency in Canada saw her research the hummingbirds in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. “As part of the three-month project, I collaborated with the Okanagan Naturalists Club, which had been banding hummingbirds for years. Making a presentation on the birds was interesting. I realised that while almost all homes had hummingbird feeders, they knew nothing about them,” says Rajput.

Later that year during a family holiday, she visited the Ladakh Arts and Media Organisation, a public charitable trust. This marked a turning point in her life. “You can always sit in air-conditioned rooms and speak about global warming. There, I saw the real effects. The glaciers were melting. I heard about the Black-necked crane (it breeds on the Tibetan plateau and in remote parts of India and Bhutan) from my driver and I went on read reports by the World Wildlife Fund and those on the field,” says Rajput.

Over the last three years she raised funds to use art for wildlife conservation. “My first workshop there had 1,500 children from different schools in Leh and Chushul, which is close to the China border… I took them on bird watching trips and introduced them to their local birds. In a place where electricity and water are scarce, it is not easy to get people to focus on birds. But, I felt we had to do something before these cranes vanished.” As part of the workshop and an exhibition that followed, Rajput built the cranes from scratch, taking many weeks to perfect them — a small 5” by 7” bird takes approximately three weeks to make.

Bird festival

The artist still works with the trust in Ladakh and is considering hosting a bird festival there in September. “We wish to document birds in Nature, performance, art, music, literature…for the nine-day festival I will collaborate with the Dara Shikoh Festival of Arts in Srinagar for content. I also plan to build a permanent installation on the birds of Ladakh.”

What funds her workshops are generous donations from corporates as part of their CSR activities or grants from organisations working in wildlife. And, what keeps the artist going is the knowledge that the paper birds do their bit to keep the real ones flying. “I know I’m not a conservationist. I’m an artist, but I’m glad my work initiates a dialogue on birds and nature," says Rajput, whose miniatures are sought by bird lovers for gifting, by gallery owners and wildlife organisations.

Which is why she’s already prepping for the festival. “I’m making miniatures of the Common kingfisher, Eurasian eagle owl and Little Owl, birds found in the region. Work is on to ready an app on the birds of Ladakh. It will have the local name of the bird as also the stories surrounding it in Ladakhi folk tales. We are working to get it running without the Internet, because connectivity here is patchy. And, finally there’s a play on the confluence of birds, led by a hoopoe,” concludes Rajput.

Buy her birds on niharikarajput.com and Etsy India

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