- #HGWORLD
- #HGCREATORS
- #HGEXPLORE
- #HGVOICES
- #HGSHOP
- CAREERS
- ABOUT US
- CONTACT US
swansong
/ˈswɒnsɒŋ/
noun ⸱ the final performance or activity of a person's career.
There's something sombre about 'Swansong' — Priyesh Trivedi's latest piece in his subversive, satirical 'Adarsh Balak' series of illustrations, paintings, and sculptures. Is this Trivedi's swansong to the series? Or is it an allusion to the inevitable end of the world as we hurtle towards an ignominious denouement? Who knows, really? The artist doesn't appear too concerned about all that, and neither do his "ideal" children.
A 30-inch × 40-inch canvas done in oil, the painting depicts four children in a swan-shaped paddle boat floating through a toxic swamp. Barrels marked with the trefoil ionizing radiation symbol float alongside them, but the children seem unfazed by the hazards. One of them, a boy, rolls a joint; the two girls sip on beer; the other boy sleeps — lazily dangling a leg into the toxic sludge that surrounds them. A pale blue sky and bright white clouds add contrast to this bleak vision of a dystopian near-future. From behind the boat, a three-eyed mutant fish stares at the viewers.
In Trivedi's signature irreverent, subversive, sardonic Adarsh Balak style, 'Swansong' points towards the seemingly doomed future of the human civilisation and the nonchalance with which we seem to be sleep-walking towards it. When I look at the painting, I can only think about the enshittification of everything and how helpless we are in the face of a collapsing world — the microplastics in our food and water; the hydrocarbon particulates in our air; and the self-destructive glee of the powers that be. Even as I write this article, I am painfully aware of the failures of COP29, the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and the refusal of the developed world's most polluting nations to be held accountable. What choice do we have in the face of this — except to laugh at our own inescapable misery?
The younger generations certainly seem to think so. When they look at their smartphones, they see failing democracies; dysfunctional economies; burning forests; polluted oceans; melting glaciers. They see a mass extinction event in medias res. They see hopelessness like the older generations didn’t have to. It’s not that we don’t see what’s happening to the world — to our world — but even so, we have the luxury of looking at the world through a lens of hope because we had the privilege of growing up in a world where hope wasn’t such an alien notion. The younger generations do not have the same privilege.
'Adarsh Balak' persona has always been a mirror of youth identity and culture, and 'Swansong' carries forward that legacy with its defiant imagery of unfazed "ideal" children in a barren wasteland. Is this that much of a stretch from the world we're leaving behind for the younger generations?
'Swansong', the latest piece in Priyesh Trivedi's 'Adarsh Balak' series, is currently on view at Method India, Booth 37, at Art Mumbai.
Follow Priyesh Trivedi here.
Learn more about Art Mumbai here.
