Ravi Agarwal is an artist, environmental campaigner, writer and curator who addresses entangled questions through an interrelation of art, research and activism, focusing on the subject of nature and its futures. He will present a lecture about his artistic projects and activism, followed by a conversation with Bergen based artist Michael Stumpf. 

Ravi Agarwal (Delhi, 1958) has been shown at major museums in solo and group exhibitions, and at international biennales. He has co-curated large public art exhibitions, including the Yamuna-Elbe project (Hamburg and Delhi, 2009) and Embrace our Rivers (Chennai, 2018). More recently he curated New Natures, A terrible beauty is born at the Goethe Institute and CSMVS Museum, Mumbai, and Imagined Documents at the Les Rencontres d’ Arles 2022. Agarwal is also the founding director of the environmental NGO Toxics Link and the founder of The Shyama Foundation, which engages with art and ecology practices in India. He has both written and edited books and journals, including The Crisis of Climate Change (Routledge, 2021), and Marg Journal of the Arts – Art and Ecology (Mumbai, April 2020).

Agarwal is a co-convener of Bergen Assembly 2025 together with writer and visual culture researcher Adania Shibli, and Bergen School of Architecture (BAS).

The lecture is held at Knut Knaus Auditorium, Møllendalsveien 61. The location has step free access. The lecture is held in English and is free and open to all.

Monday Lectures is a public platform combining invited guest lecturers and professors and researchers of the faculty at KMD. Monday Lectures aim to create a diverse programme of lectures exploring a wide range of disciplines and research topics. Lectures typically take place on Mondays at 10:00 at the Knut Knaus Auditorium and are free and open to all.

Image credit: ‘I am going to the sea, clear the path’ – Digitally printed canvas banner: spectrogram of interacting effects of vessel noise and shallow river depth elevate metabolic stress in Ganges river dolphins (Scientific Reports 9, 15426) – 151 cm x 215 cm – (2019).