Indian Artist Tanmay Shah Brings Borrowed Earth to UNESCO’s Global Climate-Art Conversation

About the Platform

The Art for Earth: Climate Creativity Lab 2026 is a joint initiative of the UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia and the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, implemented under the framework of “Je Create: Culture and Innovation for a Sustainable Future.” The webinar, held on August 14, 2026, marked the first public event of the Lab and was designed to showcase projects linking artistic practice with climate change across the Asia-Pacific region, with the goal of inspiring a new generation of artists and cultural practitioners to engage with the crisis through their work. Six selected artists shared their projects, outcomes, creative approaches and community engagement strategies, followed by a moderated panel discussion on how art can drive climate awareness, behavioural change and community resilience.

About the Work

Borrowed Earth is Tanmay Shah’s third exhibition and second solo showcase, comprising 26 works in acrylic on canvas alongside photographic explorations drawn from journeys across varied geographies. The exhibition takes its title, and its central premise, from a simple provocation: that the Earth is not something humanity owns, but something it has only borrowed. Rather than depicting climate change literally, the works examine how people perceive the world they inhabit, through distance, reflection, intervention and fragility, turning everyday and symbolic imagery into meditations on permanence, ownership and consequence.

Shah’s approach to the subject is observational rather than dramatic. His paintings do not stage catastrophe; instead, they sit with quieter shifts: a groundwater straw drawn ever deeper, a turban lifting from a cracked field, a species adapting to conditions it was never built for, asking viewers to notice what changes slowly enough to go unnoticed.

The Artist’s Perspective

For Shah, whose decade-long career has moved between social documentary filmmaking and painting, Borrowed Earth extends a long-standing interest in translating complex systems into emotionally legible narratives. Where his earlier documentary work addressed social issues directly, his paintings approach climate and environmental change through metaphor and perception, treating the canvas as a space to slow down and re-examine assumptions about stability and permanence that underlie how people relate to their surroundings.

“I didn’t want these paintings to tell people the planet is in crisis. Most people already know that. I wanted them to ask a quieter question: what does it actually mean to live on something you’ve only borrowed? If there’s one thing I hope younger audiences take from this work, it’s to think about climate rationally rather than fearfully, to see it as a set of systems and choices, not just headlines. That shift in how we see is where any real motive for change begins.” Tanmay Shah

Why This Platform Matters

As climate change increasingly shapes policy, science and public discourse, platforms like the Art for Earth: Climate Creativity Lab reflect a growing recognition that artistic practice has a distinct role to play alongside data and advocacy, one built on perception, empathy and the kind of attention that statistics alone cannot generate. Shah’s inclusion among six artists selected from across the Asia-Pacific region situates Borrowed Earth within this broader movement: a body of work made in India, addressing planetary questions, now part of a conversation UNESCO is convening at a regional and international scale.

Looking Ahead

Shah’s presentation of Borrowed Earth at the UNESCO webinar marks a continuation rather than a culmination, one step in an artistic practice that has consistently sought new platforms for ideas first developed through cinema and now extended through paint and photography. As Borrowed Earth continues to travel and find new audiences, it adds to a growing body of Indian artistic work engaging seriously and specifically with the language of climate and ecology.

About Tanmay Shah

Tanmay Shah is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Ahmedabad, India, whose work has consistently engaged with social issues through cinema. He is the founder of FridayFictionFilms, a production house known for narrative-driven work across social, corporate and scientific domains, whose films have been entrusted by national and international organisations to communicate ideas requiring both clarity and sensitivity. A former Research Associate at IIT Bombay, Shah bridges scientific thinking with cinematic storytelling. In 2015, he created the 52 Films Project, producing 52 short films in 52 weeks, a body of work recognised by the Limca Book of Records, the India Book of Records and the Golden Book of World Records. His short documentaries Pinch of Salt and Walls That Matter have together received 33 international film festival awards, and his short film WOO has been streamed on Disney+ Hotstar. He has spoken at TEDx platforms and conducts social filmmaking workshops across schools and colleges. His artistic practice has since expanded into painting and photography, where he explores climate and environmental systems through observation rather than catastrophe. Borrowed Earth is his third exhibition and second solo showcase.