Submissions | VizChitra 2026
Moving Upstream: An archive of a river through stories and experiences
Siddharth
Founder•Veditum India Foundation
Description
What is a river? And how do you tell its story? That’s the core question driving the Moving Upstream programme.
This participatory story-telling exhibit aims to replicate the approaches of learning and observation inherent in the slow journey of walking along the river. You don't get to choose who to talk to, and you can never know what you may hear or see. Information comes in bits and pieces, in the form of stories of grief, loss, sadness and the occasional joy. These stories are beyond the river, water and biodiversity. They cover caste, inequities and social hierarchies, food, livelihoods and others. Step by step, interview by interview, these stories weave themselves into the narrative fabric of the riverine community.
It's an intense, immersive approach of gathering granular data and information. And, once the stories are heard and data gathered, it becomes our duty to narrate it to the world.
We imagine it'll take about 15 minutes for participants to listen to 5 stories. They can choose to listen to more stories.
We hope the visitor will not just take back a sliver of the joys and tragedies of living by rivers, but also will reframe their understanding of what a river actually is. Does following water alone make a river? Do rivers have a right over its sediments? Who benefits from dams and canals? Who has the right over the water around them? Can easy solutions designed in the corridors of power ever be fair? Can there ever be just a singular imagination of a river? Or for that matter, any environment-scape?
Data Source
Since 2016, the programme has seen 24 fellows walk about 9,000-km across 6 rivers. The immersive fellowships have led to an incredibly rich archive of ethnographic & environmental observations & stories about rivers & the people who depend on them.
The stories and field notes stretch to over 1,500 pages, while over 25,000 photos & videos have been taken.
These have been distilled in a variety of outputs: from news articles to documentaries to soundscapes & songs, to zines & illustrative comics.
For the exhibit, our fellows will be asked to narrate five poignant stories and experiences from their journeys. This will be collated and curated in audio tracks for the visitor to listen.
We have put together postcards, theme based stamps, maps, & a way for visitors to interact, hear stories, make their individual data visualizations, & collective data visualisations. This ensures learning about the theme as well as how data collection / visualisation plays out.
Technical Requirements
We’d need a few tables; mounts to display large maps, a few small tables which will act as stations; 5-10 basic MP3 players with headphones to function as audio guides, a pinboard, and a basic copier to copy the postcards for collective data visualisation that will emerge from the exhibit itself.
There is no electronic component except the copier, which will need A4 sheets and a power connection.
Project Status & Timeline
The proposal is an extension of the Moving Upstream exhibition held at Agami’s Justicemaker’s Mela in December 2025. Over months, Veditum and the fellows from the Moving Upstream:Luni programme devised a one-hour story-telling workshop involving a similar set-up. Instead of audio-books, we had five fellows, who were physically present, narrate stories in a baithak. The response was overwhelming, with our fellows saying that participants came much after the programme asking for more stories.
We’ve adapted the concept for VizChitra’s static stall. We are confident we’ll be able to get the stories from fellows in audio form, and place them in tracks - including background sounds captured from their walks - well before the exhibition.
Previous Work
View PortfolioTeam
Moving Upstream
Moving Upstream is a project of Veditum India Foundation. Intimate walking journeys documenting India’s rivers and riparian ecosystems, creating community networks, awareness programs, publications, and archives, for the conservation of India’s lesser known rivers through collaborative action.
This proposal is being anchored by Mohit Rao, Kabini Amin, & Siddharth Agarwal from Veditum.