Climate Mandalas In A Burning World: Portals of Transformation

 On the heels of 2024, the hottest year on planetary record, Neha Misra नेहा मिश्रा centers collective ways of being and belonging as the portals of transformation that today’s age of climate change demands. Engaging sacred geometry rooted in the spiritual ecological traditions of Misra’s ancestral India, this presentation of new works contemplates the circle, or “Mandala” in Sanskrit, as an invitation to heal and to be made whole. 

Grounded by an ambient soundscape produced in collaboration with Tvameva and Priya Parrotta, Misra’s immersive array of painted tapestries includes two interrelated bodies of work. Misra’s Elementary Mandala Portals render Ayurveda’s “Panchabhutas;” earth, water, fire, air, and ether—reimagined as spirit. Using playful symbolism that highlights the intersections between planet and people, each painted mandala serves as a meditation on these elements as fundamental to all matter and key to regenerative climate solutions. Created using upcycled fabric from the artist’s intergenerational, transcontinental circle of weavers, mothers, sisters, and aunts, sarees take on new life, meaning, and monumental scale as hanging tapestries. 

In alignment, the Climate Solutions Mandalas on view were created through a mix of relational and conversational processes with five local, regional, and international organizations whose work Misra locates within circles of inspiration, community, and climate solidarity: Temperance Alley Garden (U Street Corridor, DC), Green Dharma, The North Carolina Climate Justice Collective, Remote Energy, and Women & Allies in Climate. The collaborative mandalas reflect varied approaches to building climate solutions and systems of care. 

To offer further context, Neha Misra shares the following: “As my kin across South Asia continue to battle extreme heat, and news of a potent heat dome building over North America poses an imminent threat to my migratory home, I hope to offer Portals of Transformation as both a living contemplation and call to action—to Mother Earth, her beings and each other. In ever deepening circles of inner and outer transformation, the exhibition’s visual vocabulary serves as an invitation to remember that in the face of a burning world, the portal is us.”

Artist

Neha Misra (b. 1980; New Delhi, India) is an award-winning eco-folk artist, poet, and climate justice advocate. Misra’s interdisciplinary practice embodies the transformative power of art to build bridges between private, collective, and planetary healing and justice.

Artworks