80 artists come together to spread awareness about India's jumbos on World Elephant Day
Elephants
New Delhi and Mumbai: WWF India, Rishabh Shroff & Dr Tarana Khubchandani bring together the country's leading artists to create artwork in their signature style, honouring the wondrous Asian elephant on World Elephant Day today. 'Little Trunkets" exhibits over 100 artworks, including paintings, sculptures, and ceramics, each with its unique individuality. Several renowned artists have conceived and crafted pieces, especially for this topical exhibition.
'Little TRUNKETS' hopes to help address the severe lack of support for elephant conservation in India. As the world's rarest elephant species, Asian elephants face a range of threats, including habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, poaching, and human-elephant conflict. As a perspective, India's elephants receive only about a third as much support as African elephants and just a tenth as much as India's tigers. This unfortunate reality underpins a lack of awareness over the irreplaceability of the charming Asian elephant.
Echoing the sentiments of the artists, Arzan Khambatta, the leading sculptor, said, "Art is a powerful way to create awareness about Asian Elephant conservation. The elephant is a playful, beautiful and graceful animal that needs our support."
As a fundraising exhibit, 'Little Trunkets' will support two causes: practical efforts to boost human-elephant coexistence and a campaign to educate families and harness support for their conservation. Environmental education is an integral part of WWF India's conservation efforts.
Rishab Shroff, Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and Philanthropy Ambassador WWF India said, "People can support our cause in multiple ways, which is its beauty. Make environmental welfare part of your Board's agenda. Speak to your children about elephants and pique their interest with fun facts. Make your succession plan with either a lifetime gift or legacy donation to this cause. Or just get some lovely art and support Little Trunkets."
"We hope this endeavour will raise support for elephant conservation and help people realize what we stand to lose if elephants continue to lose their habitat." Dr Tarana Khubchandani – Director, Art & Soul.
Recent discoveries have demonstrated the richness of elephant lives and how much we will lose if they disappear from our planet. Elephants play a unique role in ecosystems, from creating habitats for smaller species to dispersing the seeds of fruiting trees.
Elephants are not just intelligent, powerful, and empathetic— they have abilities that we can only imagine. They can hear low-frequency infrasound and sense seismic vibrations through their feet; they may sense the onset of tsunamis. Elephants also have a better sense of smell than dogs. While dogs have 80 genes dedicated to smell and humans have 40, elephants have 200! Elephants also rarely get cancer, apparently producing proteins that help destroy cancerous cells.
Dr Dipankar Ghose, Director Wildlife and Habitats, WWF India "WWF India has partnered with Cyril Amarchand and Mangaldas and Gallery Art & Soul for 'Little Trunkets', an exhibition aimed at raising support for elephant conservation. WWF India works for the conservation of this National Heritage Animal by promoting human-elephant coexistence, addressing human-elephant conflict, and maintaining the integrity of elephant landscapes."
WWF India works relentlessly towards the on-ground restoration and securing of elephant habitat. However, the public does not seem fully aware of the dire situation for Asian elephants, the world's rarest elephant species. Perhaps this is in part due to inaccessible science communication. Sometimes, art needs to partner with science revealing the wonders of our world.
Note to Editors:
Little TRUNKETS is a great opportunity for people to collect elephant paintings, sculptures and ceramics. For the young aspirational collector as well as the art connoisseur, it is a rare chance to collect a unique art piece and support an important cause. Some of the participating artists include - ARZAN KHAMBATTA, ADIL WRITER, ANKIT PATEL, AJAY DE, PARESH MAITY, SUJATA BAJAJ, BINA AZIZ, BRINDA MILLER, HEERAL TRIVEDI, JAYA LAMBA, JENNY BHATT, NABIBAKHSH MANSOORI, NAYANAA KANODIA, PUJA KSHATRIYA, SANTANU HAZARIKA, SHAYONTI SALVI, SHOLA CARLETTI, SHUVAPRASANNA, SUDIP ROY, SURESH MUTHUKULAM, SUSHMA JAIN, VINITA KARIM, SHIVANI DUGAR, VILAS SHINDE, JINSOOK, REVATI SHARMA SINGH, SEEMA KOHLI, SATISH GUPTA, SUBHASH AWCHAT, VINOD SHARMA, YASHWANT DESHMUKH, and GURCHARAN SINGH
Click to watch the exhibition online : https://galleryartnsoul.com/viewing-room-little-trunkets/
Or visit:
Gallery Art & Soul,
11 Madhuli,
Shivsagar Estate,
Worli, Mumbai – 18
For any query, please contact:
Komal Chaudhary
Senior Manager Media & PR
WWF India
kchaudhary@wwfindia.net
About Dr. Tarana Khubchandani
Tarana Khubchandani is the founder and director of Art & Soul Gallery, Mumbai and heads the not for profit organization PASSAGES that educates and empowers urban women in various spheres, but importantly, has helped raise awareness on the cause of Breast Cancer in Mumbai. This NGO provides financial, medical and emotional support to breast cancer patients in all strata of our city. A dental and Oral Surgeon by profession, Tarana is also an avid art collector and patron and started her journey as a Gallerist in 2003 with Gallery Art & Soul. With over 250 art shows of an exceedingly high calibre, she has set her sights on public art projects, wherein she has consulted and procured the art, collaborating closely with artists.
About WWF India
WWF India is committed to creating and demonstrating practical solutions that help conserve India’s ecosystems and rich biodiversity. Completing 50 years of conservation journey in the country, WWF India works towards finding science-based and sustainable solutions to address challenges at the interface of development and conservation. WWF India is part of the WWF network, with offices in over 100 countries across the world. WWF India works in over 20 states across thematic areas, including the conservation of key wildlife species and their habitats, management of rivers, wetlands and their ecosystems, climate change adaptation, driving sustainable solutions for business and agriculture, empowering local communities as stewards of conservation, combatting illegal wildlife trade and inspiring students and citizens to take positive action for the environment through outreach and awareness campaigns. http://www.wwfindia.org
About Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas
India’s Leading Law Firm, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas was founded on May 11, 2015 and takes forward the values going back 104 years, of the erstwhile Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A. Shroff & Co. Tracing its professional lineage to 1917, the Firm has 750 lawyers, including over 150 partners, and offices in India’s key business centres at Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, GIFT City and Singapore. The Firm advises a large, and varied client base that includes domestic and foreign commercial enterprises, financial institutions, private equity funds, venture capital funds, start-ups and governmental and regulatory bodies.
The firm was named in ‘25 Most Innovative Companies of the Year’ by CII. Also, received “Law Firm of the Year” award at the Asian Legal Business (ALB) India Law Awards 2020 and “Law Firm of the Year, India” at the Asialaw Regional Awards 2020. The firm was recognised as the “Most Innovative National Law Firm of the Year – India for 2020” at the IFLR Asia Awards and voted as the “Employer of Choice for 2020” from India, by the Asian Legal Business.
About Gallery Art & Soul
art & soul, established in 2003, is a gallery showcasing Indian modern and contemporary arts in the heart of Bombay. Founded by Dr. Tarana Khubchandani, as an extension of her not-for-profit activities, the gallery has pursued a discourse in India and internationally of aesthetic syncretism, producing exhibitions that are varied in genre, materiality and conceptual thought across art historical timelines.
From its inception, art & soul has produced a stellar Breast Cancer charity support salon exhibition and gala. Over the last two decades, it has hosted solo exhibitions and retrospectives of artists such as Syed Haider Raza, Abdul Aziz Raiba, Krishna Reddy, Rabin Mondal, Lalitha Lajmi, Vasant Wankhede, Manu Parekh, Jatin Das, Satish Gupta, Subhash Awchat, Vilas Shinde, Jinsook, Ankit Patel, Sujata Bajaj, Seema Kohli, Vinita Karim, Yashwant Deshmukh, Arzan Khambatta, Revati Sharma Singh, Rithika Merchant. Apart from the expansive space in the Worli district of Bombay, the gallery has partnered in hosting exhibitions with the National Gallery of Art, Mumbai, India Art Fair, India Habitat Center, CSMVS Museum, Mumbai, Jehangir Art Gallery, Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai, Clark House Initiative, Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum, India Art Festival, The Royal Opera House, Chennai Art Summit and Nehru Centre.
The gallery exhibition programming is dynamic and interspersed with senior artist presentations, curated group shows and debutant solo shows for young artists.
Elephants
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