Ramani Mylavarapu’s Roots to Rivers Opens At Bikaner House

Spanning works since 2017, the show journeys from Uppada’s fishing villages and Araku’s tribal women to Assam’s Manas region, while reimagining icons like Mona Lisa with Mask and Panchkanyas through layered narratives of fragility, strength, and feminist agency.

“For me, art begins with empathy. I undertake a work about people when they move me strongly,” Mylavarapu says. Observing women in Araku balancing agriculture, marketing, and family, she immersed herself in their daily rhythms, capturing resilience in ordinary acts. Explaining the title, she notes, “Roots signify origin, memory, and grounding. Rivers represent continuity and change, the flow of ideas across time and geography.”

Farmers, fishermen, and tribal women become both metaphor and subject, linking collective histories with personal memory.

Feminist narratives are central. Mona Lisa with Mask, created during the pandemic, highlights “our shared fragility,” while The Way We Look, shaped by the Me Too movement, questions gendered power structures.

“Being a woman myself, I empathised deeply with the struggle for equality and respect,” she adds.

Far from a static retrospective, Roots to Rivers is a continuum, merging community life, mythology, and feminist inquiry into a flowing meditation on resilience and belonging.