Undheka-Dekha
Print-based Installation
Stories with | Geeta Timsina, Serlibon Timungpi, Manisha Halai , Lakhiram Rongam, Arjun Rai
Artist-Designer | Mahi Agarwal
Concept Note
"I am a hornbill. My absence is not empty—it lingers, altering the world I once sustained. This is a landscape of white—where details are hidden, but nothing is missing. The space I leave behind is still shaped by me. Look closely, and you will see my outline in the trees I once seeded, in the gaps where I no longer nest. What is unseen is not absent. What is silent is not gone. You just have to know how to look." This project explores the delicate threshold between presence and absence through the figure of the hornbill—a keystone species whose impact often goes unnoticed. Using camouflage and the colour white as central visual strategies, the project examines how something can be invisible yet deeply felt. The hornbill becomes both subject and symbol: a quiet force that transforms its surroundings, even in disappearance. White, often mistaken for emptiness, here holds memory, echo, and trace. Through subtle layering and visual concealment, the work invites viewers to pause, look again, and consider the unseen roles that sustain life. It is a reflection on ecological loss—and on how presence can live on, even in absence.
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About
Mahi Agarwal
Mahi Agarwal is a practicing artist whose work is rooted in analogue explorations, spanning mixed media, graphic, and textile-based projects.
Her process embraces experimentation, allowing materials to shape the narrative as much as her own intent. She approaches each project as a dialogue between concept and medium. This video offers a glimpse into that evolving practice. Mahi looks forward to connecting with fellow artists, designers, and creative minds.
Geeta Timsina
Geeta Timsina is a warm, cheerful woman from Bordekorai, a village nestled at the forest’s edge in Assam. She shared a deeply personal story of ecological change. She recalled how hornbills once frequented the trees near her home to eat Tokko fruits—until the forest was cleared for new development, and the birds vanished with it. She talked very fondly about birds and her connection to them.
Serlibon Timungpi
Serlibon Timungpi was a GreenHub fellow from the batch of 2016-17. She now works as a Wipro Earthian Sustainability Educator. She says, “In our Karbi community we have many more such stories, where almost every Clan have our own deity in the form of wildlife. We have such connected or related stories with wildlife such as, elephant, monitor lizard, hornbill and many more.”
Manisha Halai
Manisha Halai is part of the team at GreenHub Films, an initiative that uses visual storytelling to advocate for ecological conservation and sustainable practices. Her work supports youth engagement and environmental awareness through impactful film-based narratives.
Lakhiram Rongam
Lakhiram is part of the special forces of a tiger watcher, a forest watcher in Pakke. He finds a deep sense of contentment walking under the canopy, discovering new species that he didn’t know of. He enjoys looking at the hornbills and shows them to his twin daughters as well.
Arjun Rai
Arjun Rai is a filmmaker from Seijosa. He says in his childhood he used to hunt birds with his friends, but once he entered Pakke Tiger Reserve through Tana Tapi, he could observe the hornbill and the beauty of nature.
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