Shared Ecologies brings together films that can be seen to explore more-than-human relationships, challenging the anthropocentric view that dominates our present.

Maraluva Daari (Path of Return) by Jayasri Sridhar (2024) 
Duration: 24 mins 

Notebooks from Alaiyathi by Anoushka Kurien (2022-24) 
Duration: 15:55 min

Maraluva Daari tells the story of Ahalya from Ramayana, whose refusal to be turned from rock to human is posed as a rejection of the human-centric idealisation of our world. The rock becomes a witness to history and the anthropocene as she narrates the modern age of concrete.

Notebooks from Alaiyathi combine the notational form with the poetic, where the film seeks to document mangrove restoration sites. What comes together is a moving image field notebook that decenters the human and speaks to the mangroves as a living entity and ecosystem.

About the Films: 

‘Maraluva Daari’ is a short film interweaving mythology, ecology and storytelling into a tale where more-than-humans in the Anthropocene ask if a path of return can be found. The 24-minute narrative documentary juxtaposes visuals of ‘feral’ nature in the city with a conversation between two strong female characters who were transformed into non-humans in the Hindu epic, Ramayana, it reimagines agency with a self-reflexive poem in Kannada, offering a new prism for thinking about interdependence and challenging human superiority.

Made with and for the Project Alaiyathi community between 2022 and 2024, Notebooks from Alaiyathi are a set of short reflections on the mangrove restoration sites and land-waterscapes of Ennore-Pulicat. The notebooks lie somewhere between a textbook and a sensorial, imaginative space and are an invitation to witness.