Image by Getty Images via @daylifeAssociated Press News
The fetid, sewage-filled Yamuna River is an unlikely setting for a large-scale art installation. But organizers of Project Y are hoping their works will attract art lovers who rarely venture onto its filthy banks and draw attention to the chronic pollution of a river worshiped as holy by Hindus. The public art initiative, with works by four Indian artists and five Germans, aims to raise awareness of the sad state of the Yamuna by linking it with Germany's far cleaner Elbe - where a similar exhibition is being mounted.
"Everyone here knows the river is polluted and dirty, but I want to re-awaken the idea of ecology for it. We want people to come and see what the river is all about for themselves," said Ravi Agarwal, a co-curator of the project.
So near the rusting Loha Pul Bridge, where locals wash their clothes, floats a sculpture of the female form below the waist. Its legs trap the Yamuna's bounty: discarded plastic bottles, marigold garlands thrown in the river by worshipers and a pig carcass. Among other installations are Gigi Searia's Fountain of Purification, which pumps water from the river through five levels of a tower before spurting "pure water" from the top. Even that purified water is still brown and putrid.
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