Like many Indians, Namita Kulkarni grew up hearing the phrase “third-world countries” as a derogatory term for former European colonies, primarily in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. “A far more truthful label would be historically pillaged countries, but we know even our history books were written by colonisers who had no interest in owning up to the ugly truth of their centuries of violence and theft,” she elaborates in the text accompanying Coloniser Crisis, a painting that depicts the colonial dimensions of the current climate crisis.
The artwork is a map of the world that has been painted using two different colours, which, according to her, are symbolic of the colonial project: crimson for the former colonisers to indicate the blood they are built on, and gold leaf to symbolise the cultural and economic wealth that was lost during the colonisation process.
The painting is part of a series titled Colonialism and the Climate Crisis, currently on display at the United Nations in New York as part of Canvas for Change, an exhibition organised by ICAAD, showcasing “the role of art in confronting urgent intersectional global human rights issues, including environmental degradation and the climate crisis, racial discrimination, colonialism, and migration,” as the UN website puts it.
‘Bon Appétit’ is a comment on overconsumption
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Some of the other paintings in this series include Jal Jungle Zameen – Water, Jungle, Land, which focuses on Adivasi rights; Bon Appétit, a comment on overconsumption; and Thirst World Countries, about the global water crisis. “We always see the climate crisis framed as a matter of carbon emissions. If carbon emissions are the problem, we can just compensate or offset our way around it,” says the Bengaluru-based artist over a call from the US. But this framing, she believes, only explains the mechanism. “It doesn’t tell you the context, the history, the story behind it, which is colonisation.”
The artworks on display are a reminder that while we should internalise the significance of climate change in our lives, it is also important to appreciate its relationship to colonialism. The colonising mindset, “where we see nature as a bunch of resources we endlessly extract from,” is what has brought the climate crisis to our doorstep, Namita says, adding that while the former colonised countries, today the Global South, bear the brunt of the climate crisis, “the colonising countries, largely the Global North, are responsible for the highest (carbon) emissions and for building their empires on the bloodshed and genocide of colonised countries.”
Her artwork also acknowledges the perspectives and traditions of indigenous peoples from around the world, who, she says, have lived on the same piece of land in relative harmony. “They manage to live like that, because they put life at the centre, not profit. The more I looked at their perspectives, I found myself amazed by the level of wisdom they have.”
The genesis of this series dates back to a social media post Namita stumbled upon in December 2021. “It was a call for artists, saying we want art on any human rights subject,” says the self-taught artist, travel blogger and yoga teacher. ” Although she had never heard of the International Centre for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD), a New York-based human rights organisation, she decided to apply anyway, says Namita, who had been reflecting on the link between colonisation as the context for the climate crisis for a while, by then. “It has been swimming around my head, and I had been reading about it, listening to people, and just thinking about it quite a bit. So, when this came, I thought that this was a subject that had to be spoken about more.”
An artwork from the series titled ‘Woman Stands Shining’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangememt
She sent them her proposal, accompanied by a few watercolour paintings, “thinking that it was a long shot.” Within a week, she received an email from them, welcoming her to the cohort, recalls Namita, with a laugh, her surprise and happiness at having made it, still lingering in her voice. She, along with the four other artists in the cohort, was first put through a human rights fundamentals course for a couple of months in March and April 2022. “It included videos, readings and discussing things. We were studying the basic concepts of human rights and how art has been used around the world to protest things and how there is no social change without imagination.”
Once they were done with the course, they began work on the art, with September as the deadline for the nine paintings, created with ICAAD’s support. These artworks, “largely acrylic on canvas, though one of them is watercolour on paper with some pressed flowers,” were first exhibited for over a month in November 2022 at Bangalore Creative Circus.
‘Apocalypse as Collapse-Renewal’ by Namita Kulkarni’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
“It was a pretty intense project, and I do feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of the subject,” says Namita, who also sent these paintings to New York, where they were exhibited and a few even sold at a fundraising event for ICAAD in Manhattan in 2025.
“I made these paintings with my soul, and watched it get auctioned by an auctioneer from Sotheby’s, so it was pretty wild,” says Namita, who thinks of her art as a way of looking “into the abyss without falling into it.”
She firmly believes that art can help us relate to the climate crisis at an emotional level. “We all have a strong relationship with the earth, and when you can’t wrap your head around something, art can help you wrap your heart around it.”
Published – July 10, 2026 07:17 am IST
