Everyone responds to the state of the planet in their own way. Some speak up in protests, some work towards build policy, some quietly compost in their backyards. Others sink into the delusion that things aren't that bad. For Kaanchi Chopra, the response has been slower, softer, but no less radical. As a nature-based artist and designer, her practice is less about imposing change and more about inviting it, through rituals of care, curiosity, and a commitment to climate action.

Kaanchi’s journey into art and environmentalism, contrarily, came from an absence of connection to the natural world. “Growing up in a landlocked city and a neighbourhood devoid of greenery, nature often felt distant and foreign,” she recalls. “Almost like a bookish concept rather than a presence.” That distance was eventually bridged during her years at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), when she first encountered the Nature Lab. It was here that something clicked. From mycelium packaging to kombucha leather, and microscopy experiments to aquaponics, she was struck by, as she puts it, "...the abundance of specimens, and the precision and care with which even the tiniest living species were preserved, honoured, and made available for study."

“Environmentalism didn’t feel abstract, doom-laden, or overly theoretical,” she says, “rather it was joyful, tactile, and communal.” One of her most memorable early projects, The DoGreen, epitomizes this. Developed as part of the Biodesign Challenge, the project offered a zero-waste solution for managing dog waste in urban parks. “We harnessed the power of microbes through anaerobic digestion to create energy from waste, which then powered onsite greenhouses for growing food.” The project’s circular logic continues to echo in her current practice.

Following RISD, she took on the role of Design Manager at Remake, a nonprofit focused on sustainable fashion, where she immersed herself in the murkier underbelly of global waste systems. “At Remake, I learnt to question the afterlife of products — where they end up, who has to deal with their disposal, and at what cost,” she explains. One such cost that stuck with her: Panipat, Haryana, known as the world’s castoff capital, receiving 250 tonnes of textile waste daily from across the globe.

These formative experiences planted the seeds for Kohinoori, her current biodesign initiative reimagining agricultural waste as a valuable raw material, working directly with farmers and street vendors across Haryana, Delhi, and Punjab to transform surplus produce and crop residue into regenerative packaging and paper products.

By tapping into locally abundant resources like corn husk, rice husk, ber pulp, and guar gum, the project not only diverts biomass from landfills and prevents stubble burning, it also creates alternative income streams for communities disproportionately affected by climate change.

But alongside the science and systemic critique, there was another shift, one that was more personal and artistic. “I had burnt out from overworking multiple jobs in New York’s hustle culture, and wanted to try a slower pace,” she shares. Returning to India, she began gardening and foraging fallen flowers. It became a ritual. “Every day, I would bike with a basket and forage responsibly for whatever had fallen. It did wonders for my mental health, and exponentially improved both my observation skills and my ability to stay in the present.”

One fallen spider lily changed everything. “A few weeks after pressing it in a book, I was struck by how the petals had dried so dramatically yet delicately. Its fragile necks had unfurled like spectral hands reaching for the moon.” The encounter turned into a lifelong practice. Now, her daily foraging walks, readings of Khushwant Singh’s 'Delhi Through the Seasons', Pradip Krishen’s 'Trees of Delhi', and Harini Nagendra’s 'Cities and Canopies', form the research backbone of her work.

Her current artistic language — botanical printing, scanography, site-specific installations, arises from these encounters with the ordinary sublime. There is a sense of trust embedded in her practice. A deep respect for the impermanent and the imperfect. “Designing with nature, to me, is about embracing decay, transformation, and emergence,” she reflects. “It means shifting the role of the designer from that of an authority to a listener, a facilitator, a caretaker.” Her botanical prints, therefore, are acts of reverence, of returning the gaze.

"Nature was the one thing that offered hope and companionship when everything else felt overwhelming. Romanticising flowers in such times often felt dystopian, yet it reminded me of what is truly at stake, and what still longs to be preserved. Over the past year, I have foraged, pressed and preserved over 100 plant species including Amaltas, Bauhinia, Cherry Blossom, Gulmohar, Ixora, Moringa, Nargis, Salvia, Siris, Spider Hibiscus and more," she shares.

Kaanchi captures nature just as it is. “In my pressed flower work, sometimes I’ll find a petal that has been half-eaten or bruised. I never discard it. Those marks become part of the story.” This isn’t aesthetics for aesthetics’ sake; it’s about witnessing; about acknowledging the bruises, the blemishes, the brokenness, and still calling it beautiful.

Through these flowers the artist also taps into their layered memory. “My relationship with flowers is rooted in what they’re telling me in the present moment, as well as the history of the soil they grow from,” she says. When she forages, it’s an act of listening. The scent of nargis, for example, reminds her of petrichor. The banana flower, to her, resembles “a meticulous maze,” and the dome-shaped carrot flower with its hundred tiny florets becomes an exercise in natural symmetry. There’s tactile poetry in the palash’s velvet petals, or the painterly strokes she sees in every marigold. But though acknowledged, her interaction with them isn't limited to beauty.

She elaborates, “I’ve seen red poppies etched into the marble of the Taj Mahal and Itimad-ud-Daulah, printed on Brigitte Singh’s textiles, and growing wild across Lodhi Gardens.” The poppy, she notes, has been cultivated in India since at least the 10th century; its delicate petals entwined with the heavy legacy of colonial opium trade. “At one point, over 1.3 million households in northern India harvested poppies and contributed to 15% of British colonial revenue, yet our farmers were paid less than what it cost to grow them.” To press and preserve a flower, then, is not just to appreciate its form but to acknowledge its lineage. “It’s surreal to forage and play with these seemingly delicate blooms, knowing they carry such layered histories,” she reflects. “By preserving them, I try to honour their fleeting beauty while offering them a form of semi-immortality.”

Despite the environmental despair many artists and activists wrestle with today, Kaanchi’s practice isn’t weighed down by doom. Instead, it is rooted in optimism, made tangible through the tenderness her flowers, gathered, preserved. “It’s easy to feel like our actions don’t matter when systems are broken,” she says, “but every time I press a flower, I remember the smallness and the vastness of life. I remember that beauty doesn’t have to be extracted. It can be found, honoured, and shared without harm.”

Follow Kaanchi here.

If you enjoyed reading this here's more from Homegrown:

5 Homegrown Creatives Who Are Using Their Art To Spotlight Modern Climate Emergencies

Becoming A Butterfly: A Photoseries Connecting Climate Change To Cultural Erasure

Madame Gandhi's Sample Pack Of Sounds From Antarctica Aims To Inspire Climate Action