Pretty as a Picture

Around the World

Launched yesterday as part of the Festival of France, photographs from the Earth from Above project are being displayed at a most unlikely gallery – Marine Drive, where they compete for space with determined joggers, idle college kids and covert lovers.

Taken by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, renowned artist and founder of the Good Planet Foundation, the images are all aerial views of Earth, shot from between 30 and 3,000 ft above ground level, and coupled with write-ups on corresponding environmental issues. Displayed in over a 100 countries, they have finally landed in our fair city; one look, and you’ll be glad they did.

Life Imitating Art

Can that place be real, we thought, as we took in the astonishing vistas – a natural formation of vegetation in Voh, New Caledonia is shaped like a perfect heart; an impossible swirl of blue-green ends up being a village in the Philippines; the Tree of Life in Tsavo-East National Park, Kenya pulses like a neuron with dendrites spreading far across the parched land.

Along with being visually stunning in an otherworldly way – some of these photographs look more like the abstract works of Pollock and Motherwell - the images evoke a range of emotions, from the optimism of a rainbow arching over frozen glaciers to the despair in the wreckage of a submerged village outside Dhaka. The role of civilization too, is explored, sometimes visualised as completely overwhelming the Earth (a patchwork of cotton fabrics in Sanganer, Rajasthan, covers the ground for as far as the eye can see) to barely making a dent on it (a cruise liner forms an insignificant blip on a sea of broken ice).

Point Noted?

All in all, the exhibit tells a powerful story, especially when set against the backdrop of our own bay, pretty and polluted. Its plea to the save the environment might at the very least dissuade visitors from throwing empty potato chip packets into the sea. On display for little over a month, they’ll be taken down on January 8 next year, but for now, these gems form a welcome addition to the Queen’s Necklace.

Getting there: Exhibit starts from Veer Nariman Road, opposite the Pizzeria on Marine Drive, and runs approximately 500 meters north.

I, Artist

If you have a hankering to see your work displayed in an unlikely spot as well, check out the Coldplay Exhibition Room, a digital art gallery that curates and showcases art submissions from the Brit band’s fans (or not). Exhibits change every day, and are quirky enough to justify a ten minute work break. You can even bill it as personal development time.

Getting there: Visit http://www.coldplay.com/exhibitionroom.php, or make submissions here.