Grove
absolut
promotional film
A band of visionaries taking a trip to the future through the artistic lens of Indio Futurism, Absolut Creative Commune offers diverse IndoFuturist imaginations that challenge stereotypes, celebrate diversity and represent the idea of ‘better together’. Deepti was invited to be a part of the curation for the 2023 edition of Absolut Creative Commune x Elsewhere in India, and asked to create a film that would capture her idea of Indofuturism.
When was the last time you traced the roots of your sacred connection with the ecosystem? For our piece, we tried to imagine a queer future exploring people reconnecting with sacred groves and living in interdependence with nature.
Direction and Animation: Deepti Megh
Sound and Music: BRAK
Curation: Avinash Kumar (Elsewhere in India)
Created for Absolut Creative Commune
When asked to imagine a future which celebrates the idea of ‘better together’ for an open world, Deepti’s first response was imagining a future which honours our relationship with the earth, instead of being at odds with it. In the present day, environmental conservation and development seem to be two separate things- but they don’t have to be. We wanted to imagine a future where we recognise we are a part of the natural world, not separate from it, where we are connected to our environment and to each other.
What would a future look like if the humans of today understood the urgency with which we need to preserve the little of what is left, and looked at development in a different way?
Deepti also wanted to honour her own queer identity, and imagine a future that is inclusive, and safe for queer people. The present world is seeing a lot of hatred directed at queer people.
She was drawn to Sacred groves.
For millennia, local communities in India have maintained sacred groves where they manage natural resources and many of these are tied to their cultural and religious beliefs. In the Western Ghats, such groves are relatively undisturbed patches of evergreen forests that sometimes have a pond, stream, or well that ensures perennial water supply. Often located outside of protected areas, sacred groves are rich in biodiversity, housing many threatened and endemic species of plants and animals.
In many cases, these fragments are the only relict forests that remain outside the protected area system. These groves have specific families which act as custodians of the grove, protecting it in return for protection from the deity of the grove. However, such beliefs are eroding in the present day, with growing pressures of development and construction.
We wanted to explore a future where people are rediscovering sacred groves in an ecological context. Fear and devotion has played a huge part in the reverence with which people treated sacred groves. In the future, the spiritual aspect of this relationship has been replaced with an interdependence with nature, with reverence finding another root, and finding ecological and physical value in them too. This is reflected in the seed of life, which powers the town around it- the forest is the source of power, and power does not come at the cost of the forest. The forest provides, and we revere it.
What would a future look like if the humans of today understood the urgency with which we need to preserve the little of what is left, and looked at development in a different way?
Deepti also wanted to honour her own queer identity, and imagine a future that is inclusive, and safe for queer people. The present world is seeing a lot of hatred directed at queer people.
She was drawn to Sacred groves.
For millennia, local communities in India have maintained sacred groves where they manage natural resources and many of these are tied to their cultural and religious beliefs. In the Western Ghats, such groves are relatively undisturbed patches of evergreen forests that sometimes have a pond, stream, or well that ensures perennial water supply. Often located outside of protected areas, sacred groves are rich in biodiversity, housing many threatened and endemic species of plants and animals.
In many cases, these fragments are the only relict forests that remain outside the protected area system. These groves have specific families which act as custodians of the grove, protecting it in return for protection from the deity of the grove. However, such beliefs are eroding in the present day, with growing pressures of development and construction.