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Max Mueller Bhavan | India Pune

Rupali Patil

Rupali Patil’s practice moves fluidly between printmaking, drawing, and installations, addressing social and environmental issues—particularly water and mineral crises. Rooted in ecofeminist thought, her work reflects on agrarian distress, depicting displaced farmers from industrialized landscapes. The figures in her drawings become visual metaphors, inhabiting an imagined, placeless world shaped by loss. She employs cartography and heterotopic landscapes, mapping worlds that appear unsettlingly complete, yet eerily abandoned—silent testaments to displacement and ecological erasure.
Her works have been part of Seeds are Being Sown (Shrine Empire, 2020), Pune Biennale (2017), 14th Istanbul Biennale (2015), and This Rare Earth Artefact (STUK Leuven, 2018). In 2024, she presented her second solo at Rainbow Unicorn, Berlin. She lives and works in Pune.

Rupali Portrait © Nachiket Guttikar & Deeksha Ketkar | Goethe-Institut Pune

Rupali Portrait © Nachiket Guttikar & Deeksha Ketkar | Goethe-Institut Pune

All that sink underneath

About the Project

The work reflects on the unacknowledged labor—both human and ecological—that holds systems together, drawing a parallel between mycelial networks and feminine contributions. The rigid yet fragmented structures contrast with the resilient, emphasizing the unseen, transformative forces that sustain systems such as seed saviors.
It celebrates fragility as a source of power and interconnected vitality. Metaphorically, the seed is a fertile entity with life beneath its surface, and comparing it to the fertility of women is a proposition to protect and maintain balance between both.

All that sink underneath

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