This catalogue is an extension of an ongoing research and exhibition project that TBA21 has supported since its inception in 2006. The Sovereign Forest renders visible and collects evidence of what has hitherto been hidden and suppressed within the site of a “modern war,” in which industrial interventions have reshaped and permanently destroyed parts of the landscape of the Indian state of Odisha for over a decade, leaving villagers in suffering and devastation. The ambitious catalogue attempts to reopen and deepen discussions posed by the exhibition by bringing together a variety of voices from academic and activist backgrounds, factual and intimate narratives and interviews, image documentation, and additional documents. Equally, these complex and varied narratives help to unfold a multiplicity of different knowledges and testimonies on this obscured and intricate conflict.

Copublished with Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Yorkshire Sculpture Park on the occasion of the eponymous Vienna exhibition, November 23, 2013–March 23, 2014.