Payal Kakkar
Lives of Extraction
In Singrauli, India’s “Energy Capital”, Khairwar indigenous women from Majhauli Paath are leading resistance against land dispossession caused by coal mining and the timber industry. For three years, they have held Gandhian sit-ins demanding fair compensation. The expansion of mining-waste dumps continues to encroach on their homes, disrupting families and children’s education, with further mining parcels auctioned in 2020 affecting protected areas.
Decades of extraction have forced repeated relocations and caused severe environmental damage, prompting solidarity from nearby indigenous communities.
Over the past three years, I have joined this protest through photography, creating gum-oil prints and embroidering them to evoke a disappearing indigenous way of life. This slow process contrasts with digital immediacy, while drone imagery introduces a contemporary counterpoint.
The work explores landscapes shaped by extraction and the impact of overconsumption on marginalised communities and ecosystems, documenting both environmental devastation and enduring indigenous resistance.
Devmati Singh Khairwar and memory of a home, 2023, Printmaking 2025, Majhauli Paath, Singrauli, India
This gum oil print crafted in August 2025 from a photograph taken in October 27, 2023 shows, the indigenous person, Devmati Singh Khairwar stand by the crumbling home in Majhauli Paath, just 20 meters from the encroaching Suliyari mining waste dump. She had protested for three years, demanding fair compensation and settlement plan for indigenous lands before being forcibly extracted in December 2025. An embroidered lush green tree atop a printed dry Sal tree evokes memories of a lost forest, symbolizing her resilience and the environmental destruction threatening her village.
Extracted Hiramati Singh Khairwar and Suliyari coal mining waste, Photographed 2023, Printmaking 2025, Majhauli Paath, Singrauli, India.
This gum oil print crafted in August 2025 from a photograph taken in October 27, 2023, features the indigenous woman, Hiramati Singh Khairwar stand before the last Sal trees in Majhauli Paath, Singrauli threatened by mining waste dump of the Suliyari Mine. To counter the barren landscape, lush green farmland is delicately embroidered onto the image, highlighting the contrast between the fertile past and the industrial present. This symbolic act powerfully evokes memories of lost agriculture and ecological destruction.
Extracted Indigenous girls and Imagined Home, Photographed 2023, Printmaking 2025, Majhauli Paath, Singrauli, India.
This gum oil print crafted in July 2025 from a photograph taken in October 27, 2023, shows indigenous Khariwar girls by the collapsing home in Majhauli Paath, Singrauli threatened by Suliyari coal mine debris. Hand-embroidered green threads symbolize the lost grasslands and buried innocence. The mine consumes both their land and education, forcing school dropouts. This poignant work documents the displacement and economic hardship faced by Singrauli's agrarian youth as mining waste erases their sense of belonging and future prospects.
Extracted indigenous couple Narayan and Jaimanti Singh Gond, Photographed 2023, Printmaking 2025, Majhauli Paath, Singrauli, India.
This gumoil print, crafted in November 2025 from a photograph taken in October 27, 2023, portrays indigenous couple, Narayan and Jaimanti Singh Gond in their Basi Bredah courtyard. Pictured alongside drying corn and a traditional Kathri (blanket), the Gonds faced the looming threat of displacement due to a nearby coal mine. For Jaimanti, who is visually impaired, the loss of her familiar home was a source of profound fear. In December2025, the Gonds were forcibly removed by mining company supported by heavily armed forces. Left without a resettlement or rehabilitation plan, they now face imminent poverty, making this image a stark testament to the human and economic costs of industrial development on vulnerable populations. By layering hand embroidery over the Kathri, I trace the fading lines of indigenous heritage and to protest against the erosion of indigenous craft and cultural knowledge, brought about by the environmental and social distress of extraction.
Toxic Fallout of Coal in Singrauli, 2026, Singrauli – Sonbhadra, India
This project documents the devastating human and environmental toll of industrial expansion in Singrauli- Sonbhadra, India. Known as India's "energy capital," the region has been scarred by the Rihand Dam, coal-mining, and thermal power plants since the 1960s. This industrialisation has displaced over 200,000 people, primarily indigenous and lower caste communities, while poisoning the essential resources of more than 269 villages. The Rihand reservoir, once a vital lifeline, is now a toxic basin of mercury, lead, and fluoride. Fly-ash landfills have contaminated groundwater and the food chain. Consequently, half the local population suffers from dental fluorosis, while a quarter face skeletal fluorosis. By foregrounding personal narratives within altered landscapes, it exposes how colonial-era extractive systems persist in modern forms, expanded in scale and impact. It serves as both an archive of loss and an urgent call for environmental justice, challenging us to reimagine our relationship with land, power, and overconsumption.