In Conversation with Swadha Pardesi Part 2:

Artist: Swadha Pardesi

Q: Where do you see your career panning out?

I haven't thought about way into the future. I am focusing on the next 2-4 years for now. So, as a conservationist, I think one part is the illustration. I don't want to leave that. I want to continue to do that. The second part, the City of Birds Collective, focuses on collaborating with a larger group of people and children in my city, Udaipur. We have a lot of wetlands here, but awareness and respect are missing. I think people are working here who are probably trying to bring awareness, but I believe these are David Attenborough's lines, where he said we need to love something to want to protect it. And when I read it, it just really resonated with me. So, I think my goal is to make people fall in love with these things through my illustrations. By hosting bird walks and tree walks, we have access to a tree expert, and we also discuss insects and fungi. We don't want to limit ourselves to just one topic. We want people to understand the habitats and environment as a whole.

When it comes to illustration, I'd love to work with clients outside India, apart from institutes and magazines. The reason is that working in the wildlife space doesn't pay much, especially when you are based in a country like India or a third-world country. My experience working with one international client has taught me that respect for your expertise is directly proportional to the time and effort you invest, which is reflected in your compensation. Being able to support yourself is crucial, as it's the only way to do this full-time. And I definitely cannot see myself getting a part-time job for something else, because then I would be making illustrations for a corporation to help them sell something much better. I mean, some people are probably doing that out there; it's necessary as well sometimes, because how else do we make money? However, as long as I can avoid doing that, I'll be happy, because creating something in the natural world brings me joy. Knowing that my work contributes to something much more than capitalism is very important to me.

Q: What piece of advice would you give to an incoming conservationist who would like to go in this field as a communicator or artist?

I would say one [piece of advice] would be to expose yourself to multiple things. Once you start working, I would definitely recommend watching Neil Diamond's 17-minute commencement speech, available on YouTube. Because see when you don't have mentors, professors and people, and you're just going on a self-taught journey like me, instead of going and doing a master's and pouring in so much money to some big Institute of Design, I thought that instead, why not I design my own curriculum where I will teach myself business of art, art itself, and everything about conservation and ecology, and that worked out.

 Then you start learning, and then you make your art. You're getting into conservation. Once you're into it, you need to make sure that you interact with lots of different people, whether you live in a big city or whether you live in a small town like me, somehow you need to figure out a way of just getting your work out there, getting your name out there, and understanding other people's work, interacting with them, making friends, acquaintances, and that it makes a huge difference.

Q: In your illustrations, there is a presence of 'radical language' in the way you depict your conservation issues and industries. Was that an intentional action you decided to incorporate into your illustrations?

So, it started with, "Why are we not showing humans in the illustration?"

And my client wanted me to show the migration of the globe skimmer dragonfly, also called the wandering glider. The research on that was led by Charles Anderson, whose TED talk I found incredibly informative. It's from this that most of my illustration is inspired, apart from depicting the three species of birds and the dragonfly that use the intertropical convergence zone for their migration, which goes above the Indian subcontinent and across the ocean all the way to the southern part of the African continent. My client, whose magazine theme was wind, asked me to depict clouds. They also wanted to show an airplane.

 It's especially important to show airplanes, and I think they mentioned aerosols or something related to pollution. That's when I realised the best thing to highlight here is fossil fuels, which is why there's an oil rig burning. Then that oil rig is in the ocean, and the dragonflies and the birds are crossing the ocean while doing their migration. And it's, in a way, just connecting that whatever [Humans] are doing, it's not isolated. It's affecting everything on the planet. And just because we can't see it, we are blind to it. We don't think about it. Some of us who do think about it get eco-anxiety, and then we have to try not to think about it so much, or do not feel it so much, because then we'd be paralysed to work. So, for me, that was the radical language, but showing up visually.

Artist: Swadha Pardesi, IllSc's Connect Magazine Cover, December 2022 Issue

Q: What advice would you give to artists and communicators entering the conservation field—especially those who are self-taught—about navigating issues like money, contracts, and protecting their rights?

Money is often a topic that goes unspoken, whether in conservation or other fields. Still, it definitely needs to be discussed more when it comes to science communication in the wildlife and conservation spaces, right? I think we should all be more transparent and share our knowledge, because otherwise, what ends up happening is... And in a way, everyone suffers, you know. Hence, everyone needs to know what are your rights as an artist, what is the kind of contract you should be designing, which is not only benefiting the client, but benefiting you as well, keeping you safe, respecting your work, that if you are giving the complete ownership of your work to somebody else, then you get something very good in exchange for it. And this is one of the reasons that even the first commission I did, and after that, also many commissions I did, I have always asked clients, you know, wherever you put this work up, I want my name to be in this, so that others can find me and I can get work. Sometimes we don't know what we can ask, what we can't ask. And specifically in the conservation space, many illustrators do not come from formal art backgrounds. They are either scientists who have transitioned into illustration, individuals from entirely different fields, or communicators like myself entering the visual and conservation field.

Q: Any other final thoughts?

I believe a better world will only come about if the public, regardless of their economic class, takes action. I hold the higher economic classes more accountable than anyone else. Anyone who can afford laptops and mobile phones and doesn't care about so many things, because it doesn't affect them, is a problem. If they can overcome their apathy, become more engaged, empathetic, and intentional in their actions, votes, and conversations, and think more critically about these issues, they might become more politically active. But what I mean to say is that whenever I try to talk to people, like family and friends who aren't wildlife conservationists, and I tell them that this forest is being cut down now. Or, they found a diamond mine. Or, oh, they want to get more coal. Now there's another coal power plant being made over here. They [My family and friends] will respond with, "Oh, what can we do? These people are powerful." And that whole idea of being one person and therefore not having any power. I'm just so tired of it! In a way, this type of mindset is just victimising yourself and not understanding that all the countries at some point had to get liberation from someone and many of us from colonialism. And this was not the attitude at that time, right? This freedom did not come about like that.

Where is the whole idea of community? We live in these nuclear families now, right? India, in particular, is in a transitional culture. So it's like even more complicated here. Everything is complicated here. But one of the most exciting experiences I've had in my life is joining the Let India Breathe collective, where I finally found the answer to what I'd been missing. And the thing I had been missing was community. So that's what I do. Whenever I encourage people to join climate and environmental campaigning spaces, I tell them they're looking for a community, and that's what will keep them there. It's not your work colleagues or friends; this is a whole different level of connection. You will feel a very different kind of whole, and your experiences won't be so isolated. I think this might be one reason the public feels helpless, because they think, "Oh, I'm just one person, what can I do?" And they've forgotten the power of people coming together, which is that when we unite, we can achieve so much more. People have had so many conservation victories. There are so many success stories. And this is something I keep telling the public: a sentence I heard somewhere, that in conservation, all victories are temporary, and all failures are permanent. Yes, you'll have to fight, but then it's worth it, because you get to keep your forest in your backyard and the river that's flowing across your city.

So the community that I found through climate space became the community, where I was able to share my experience of being a neurodivergent immediately after getting the diagnosis and the person who encouraged me and helped me get through the clarity of whether to get a diagnosis or not, and even the clarity you need after that, was A person from this climate space who I still thank till this day, because that was a life-changing moment for me. And then, we discovered that there are two or three more people in our collective who are neurodivergent. Now, wherever I go, people understand that we're a bit like you. I'm thinking, "Okay, this might be the case." Do you want to look up if you might be neurodivergent? And then, you keep moving around and making your own communities. You'll end up having better lives because I think living in capitalism is depressing.