Tanmay Shah, Filmmaker & Visual Artist; Founder & CEO, FridayFictionFilms
1. The title Borrowed Earth carries a powerful philosophy that we are stewards, not owners, of this planet. What drove you to build an entire exhibition around this idea?
It began as a discomfort rather than a clear concept. I kept noticing how confidently we speak about the world, as if it is stable and belonged to us. Cities grow with a sense of inheritance, while consumption carries entitlement and responsibility often comes later. Revisiting familiar places, I saw how subtly they had changed, never dramatically, but enough to unsettle the idea of permanence. That stayed with me. We depend on stability even as it quietly erodes. Ecological thinking disrupts that illusion, reminding us how brief our presence is. Borrowed Earth emerged from this shift, from ownership to responsibility, from taking to questioning what we leave behind.
2. You are a filmmaker first. How did that lens shape the way you conceived this exhibition?
Filmmaking informs the structure more than anything else. In cinema, meaning does not sit within a single frame; it builds across frames through rhythm, contrast, and what is revealed or withheld. The exhibition follows a similar logic. The works are not isolated but operate in relation to one another. Photographs act as pauses, while the space unfolds as progression. What emerges is not a sequence of objects but a shift in perception. It moves through states like distance, reflection, and fragility, shaping how each work is received. There is familiarity at first, but it gradually destabilises, continuing to unfold even after the viewer leaves.
3. The 26 photographs were shot across eight years and multiple countries. Was there one singular moment or image that crystallised the urgency you felt to make this exhibition?
Not a single moment, but a repeated pattern. Returning to the same place reveals what is easy to miss. Memory remains stable, but the landscape does not. The shifts are subtle yet cumulative, a river slightly narrower, a skyline denser, a forest edge receding. What makes it harder to ignore is that this pattern appears across geographies. In Varanasi, the relationship between built space and the river continues to evolve. In Sikkim or Munnar, the balance between natural systems and human intervention grows fragile. Even in New York City or Seattle, environments are constantly being reshaped. This extends to animal and bird habitats as well, where what appears stable often carries quiet displacement, revealing how much is already in flux.
4. You spent six months creating 26 acrylic paintings alongside the photography. What does each medium let you say that the other simply can't?
Photography establishes presence. Painting reveals structure. A photograph begins with what is visible. It records a condition as it exists, carrying the weight of witnessing. Painting moves differently. It does not depend on what is immediately available, it allows multiple layers of a system to exist within a single frame, bringing together what may not be visible at once but is connected in reality. In works like Unleaving, the boundary between organism and environment dissolves. What was external enters, settles, and begins to belong. That condition is difficult to photograph; it requires construction. The two mediums operate in tension. One anchors the work in reality. The other extends it into meaning; one says this exists, the other asks what it becomes.
5. Climate data and scientific reports haven't moved people fast enough. Do you believe art can succeed where science communication has struggled, and why?
Science has not struggled; it has been precise. The limitation lies in how that precision is absorbed. Information establishes fact, trend, and urgency, but it does not always shift how individuals position themselves in relation to the problem. The gap is not informational; it is perceptual. Art operates within that gap. It reduces distance, bringing the issue out of abstraction and into proximity. It does not replace scientific knowledge, but changes how it is experienced, locating the viewer within the system, not outside it. That shift matters. Responsibility born from proximity tends to persist differently. In that sense, art does not compete with science; it extends its reach, allowing awareness to move into consequence.
6. Be honest, do you think an exhibition like this genuinely moves people, or does everyone feel something for an hour and then go back to their lives exactly as before?
Art does not produce immediate behavioural change; that expectation is misplaced. Its effect is slower and often less visible, operating at the level of perception. It alters what is noticed, questioned, and no longer ignored. That shift is subtle but cumulative. During the exhibition, many school students engaged directly, sketching and interpreting what they saw, some even returning with their own versions. The value lies not in reaction but in processing. Those most affected by climate change can also engage with it the earliest. When awareness begins at perception rather than instruction, it carries further. Art does not solve the problem, but it changes how it is seen.
7. If someone walks out of Borrowed Earth and does just one thing differently, what do you want that to be?
A shift in the relationship. The environment is often treated as background, something separate from daily life. In reality, it is the condition that makes life possible. When seen as background, it becomes easier to overlook and extract from. The work attempts to reverse that by altering perception, bringing what feels distant into proximity. It positions the viewer within the system, not outside it. If that shift occurs, even briefly, it lingers. A river is no longer just scenery, a city no longer just infrastructure. The change appears quietly, as a pause where something once unquestioned begins to feel different.
8. Many artists see art as self-expression. Your work seems to demand something more. What do you think art is responsible for today?
Self-expression is a beginning, not an end. Work that remains within the self stays contained. When art engages with systems larger than the self, it enters a shared space where it can be encountered and questioned. The question is not about simplifying art, but about whether it remains unnecessarily closed. There is a difference between depth and inaccessibility. The work holds complexity while creating an entry point that does not require prior familiarity. Someone may enter through image or form, but what follows stays. When art holds attention across levels of understanding, it moves beyond a closed circuit. That extension is not dilution; it is participation.
