Memory of Rain

Memory of Rain is a site specific project realized during the workshop “Sowing Seeds” in Sar Village (Rajasthan- India). The project wants to investigate the problem of desertification and its consequences in the rural area, as Sar Village. Dry lands occupy nearly half of Earth’s land area. Across the world, desertification affects the livelihoods of millions of people whorely on the benefits that dry land ecosystems can provide. Therefore, desertification is one of the greatest environmental challenges today and amajor barrier to meeting basic human needs in dry lands. Desertification takes place in dry lands all over the world. Some 10 to 20% of all dry lands may already be degraded, but the precise extent of desertification is difficult to estimate, because few comprehensive assessments have been made so far. Desertification has environmental impacts that go beyond the areas directly affected. For instance, loss of vegetation can increase the formation of large dust clouds that can cause health problems inmore densely populated areas, thousands of kilometers away. Moreover, thesocialand political impacts of desertification also reach non-dry land areas. For example, human migrations from dry lands to cities and other countries can harm political and economic stability... The site specific project is composed by pieces of broken potteries, used by the women of the village to bring and storage water. The pieces of potteries, collected by the artist during the workshop, have been placed in a desert area near the village with the intent of create an archeological site with the memories of the village concerning rain. A lot of villages as Sar, will disappear in the near future because of the scarcity of rain. In the last two years the rainfall in Sar Village was irregular and scarce, causing a reduction of 50% in the agriculture production.The cost of food increase a lot and the majority of the family can just producefood for themselves. They have to buy water from other part of Rajasthan and they don’t produce enough agriculture products to sell in the market, becoming more and more poor. On each fragment of pottery the people of the village have written messages about the rain, prayers to the god, dreams but also proposal of solutions as plant new trees or organize how collect the water.
{gallery}Memory_Rain{/gallery}