You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, and what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up.

— René Daumal, French writer (1908-1944)

In June 2023 fifteen artists from across India and around the globe gathered for two weeks of immersive engagement and art-making in the foothills of the Himalaya on the campus of the historic Woodstock School for the 8th Art for Change International Artist Residency on the theme ‘The Nature of Difference.’ Situated between the majesty of the snowcapped Himalaya and the burgeoning metropolis of Dehradun in the valley below, the residency was perfectly positioned to unpack a multiplicity of issues in the context of ‘persons’ and ‘place’, in the particularity of the Himalayan mountains and India more broadly, to explore difference and diversity in nature, in human beings and society, and the world at large. This exhibition is the result of that creative intercultural endeavor.

Within the framework of the residency, this diverse group of artists came together to engage nature as teacher, encouraging investigations to our relationship with the environment, both positive and negative, to consider the challenge of stewardship, beauty, the purpose of art, and what it means to be human by living, learning, and creating together in community in the context of Mussoorie and the Woodstock School. As a collaboration with Woodstock’s Centre for Imagination, under the capable and hospitable direction of Mrs. Renu Oberei, the Hanifl Centre, and the Summer School, the program took full advantage of the many experts on aspects of the region living and working here to explore the complex, intersecting and sometimes conflicting realities of the changes taking place in the Himalaya: meeting in the studio of the forest for nature walks and talks led by experts on the ecology and biodiversity of the Himalaya and the myriad threats to it, Mr. Akshay Shah (Hanifl Centre) and Dr. Chandrima Mitra (Woodstock) and for resource sessions on art and environmental activism by Miss Katherine Dyche (Woodstock), artistic expressions of nature and the environment of Uttarakhand by Miss Surabhi Aggarwal (Mussoorie Heritage Centre), and writing about nature by notable Mussoorie author and naturalist Stephen Alter to further our investigations of this complex and multifaceted topic.

Not surprisingly, our investigations raised more questions than answers to the challenges we face to live well and in harmony with our environment and each other as individuals and societies that call this earth ‘home.’ These varied and multivalent artworks reflect that quest and at least some of the insights and aspirations we found during our time together. Our greatest hope is that when we descend from the mountains that taught us so much, we may take these learnings with us and share them with others even as we leave behind the gift of this exhibition to the Woodstock community. As Rabindranath Tagore put it so well in Creative Unity (1922): …the highest purpose of this world is not merely living in it, knowing it and making use of it, but realizing our own selves in it through expansion of sympathy; not alienating ourselves from it and dominating, but comprehending and uniting it with ourselves in perfect union.

Mentor and curator: Dr. Rachel Hostetter Smith, Ph.D. Gilkison Distinguished Professor of Art History, Taylor University