Artist Navjot Altaf Uncovers Landfills as Sites of Human History and Environmental Crisis
For artist Navjot Altaf, landfills first revealed their profound significance not in an urban setting, but deep within a forest. Several years ago, while traveling through Bastar with activist friends from the Koyla Satyagraha, she stopped at a scenic viewpoint along a tributary of the Mahanadi River, a spot where elephants typically pause to drink. The location was breathtaking, but Altaf's gaze was drawn to a disturbing sight.
"As I was looking at the landscape, I saw a huge pit to my left, as large as half a taalaab (pond). And in it were broken TV sets, radios... at least two truckful," recalls Altaf, who has lived and worked in Bastar since 1997. "We saw ash dykes for miles in the area because of coal mining. But now, we started to see the same waste in forests that we saw in cities. And not just any waste, but electronic waste. That's when I started looking at landfills carefully."
From Observation to Artistic Exegesis
Altaf began to study landfills through a multifaceted lens, combining the perspectives of an environmentalist, cultural historian, material archivist, and social activist. She saw in these sites—layered with cardboard packaging, leaking batteries, plastic food tubs, and tangled wires—not just refuse, but palimpsests of contemporary history and prophecy.
"I started looking at landfills not just as sites of discard, but as layered histories of human desire; histories that are inscribed in the very matter of that earth," she explains. This deep exploration culminates in her new body of work, Waste Archives as Landscape, currently on display at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai. Curated by Puja Vaish, the exhibition features 30 gouache works on paper, along with two installations and two video pieces created over the past three years.
Installations That Mirror Global Waste Systems
One of the standout installations, titled Take-Make-Waste, resembles a Tetris-like structure composed of large pipes mounted on the ceiling and operated by a hidden motor. This piece mimics the relentless supply chains of modern production, where products are assembled in a continuous ballet only to result in a steady stream of mounting waste.
"I took the title from the linear economy, which believes that you can extract as much as you can, shape it into objects for brief use, and then discard them," Altaf notes. The installation also alludes to global waste trade routes, where waste from wealthier nations is shipped to poorer ones, jeopardizing public health and environmental safety. As landfills proliferate, they transform from mere geological features into dominant landscapes, consuming potential habitats and stifling biodiversity.
"The landfill, to me, appears as a sublime grotesque," she writes. "A theatre where beauty and horror entwine. It is a landscape that insists on presence, that refuses to vanish even when buried."
Field Studies and Environmental Impact
Altaf's research took her to significant landfill sites across India, including Deonar and Kanjurmarg in Mumbai, and the Pirana Landfill (often called Mount Pirana) near Citizen Nagar in Ahmedabad. The latter inspired Instinct, an animated short film that captures the haunting cries of a dying dog, presumably affected by toxic substances consumed at the landfill.
This new work extends themes from Altaf's earlier projects, such as Soul Breath Wind and Barakhamba, which examine forces disrupting ecological rhythms. She highlights how mined minerals eventually reappear as mountains of e-waste, a Frankensteinian reshaping of the earth driven by industrial and governmental power systems, as well as consumer complicity.
"We became dependent on conveniences that generate such waste," she says. "Even in villages, what appears like fields of white flowers are actually plastic as you draw near."
Artistic Symbolism and Ecofeminist Perspectives
In her gouache works, Altaf introduces flowers for the first time, tightly framed and juxtaposed with images of trash. This contrast underscores a critical ecological lesson: while fallen leaves and flowers naturally sustain biodiversity, landfill waste contaminates soil and water with its minutest components.
Through an ecofeminist lens, Altaf reminds viewers "to nurture the environment in ways that allow all living beings to exist." Embedded in this worldview is a call for reduced consumption. "I'm against the model of progress driven by the global economy where you have relentless production, relentless consumption, then relentless waste," she asserts. "The way to prosperity is not the accumulation of goods—that's the patriarchal way."
Altaf's exhibition not only critiques the environmental and social impacts of waste but also invites reflection on our collective role in shaping these landscapes, urging a shift towards more sustainable and equitable practices.
