Maksud Ali Mondal is interested in the transformation of organic matter. His research- and process-based sculptures such as Synthesized Forest (2024), You Are What You Eat (2023), and Autonomous Habitat (2022) do not so much grow as decay, following the disintegrative processes of nature. Stripped of their usual negative connotations, agents of decomposition (micro-organisms like bacteria and fungi) and the changes they enact (fermentation, decomposition, and oxidation) serve as a corrective to modern ideals of purity, reversing metaphors of contamination and rot often used to devalue people defined as “other.”
During a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie (2023–25), he has produced new work visually unlike anything else he has made, though it still remains rooted in his childhood experiences and memories of growing up in West Bengal. Ultimately, he sees decay and destruction as an opportunity for creation and growth, setting the cycle in motion through site-specific, durational work that allow us to see the changing composition of life.
Beth Williamson: I wanted to begin by asking about your art education. You did your BFA and MFA at Kala Bhavana, the fine arts faculty of Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, founded by Rabindranath Tagore in 1919, but you also spent a semester at the Royal Academy of Art in the Netherlands in 2016. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience?
Maksud Ali Mondal: I was offered an exchange program and had the chance to do one semester at the Royal Academy of Art. It was the first time I had traveled to Europe. It was fascinating because when you see art in such a diverse context it is helpful. Being with international students was part of it. It was quite intense, with different teaching methods and workshops covering different ways of working. It was very beneficial during that time to learn something away from Santiniketan.
BW: Your previous work facilitated an experiential understanding of organisms. It seems that you are interested in how we relate to one another and to other non-human forms of life. How do you think about that?
MAM: Places are not empty. Even a white cube, for instance, is not empty because there are organisms living beyond what is visible. I think that’s also an identity of a space. The visual is one identity, but there is also an identity that we don’t see. I respond to that when I work, and I create conditions for it to flourish. I respond to an existing environment and find material that resonates with the environment. I place organic matter—food material, fruit, pulp, hay, organic waste from agriculture, and food waste—and then create an environment where an organism can thrive and create its own ecosystem. I use a lot of rejected material, which is also conceptually important.
BW: What is it about the processes of decomposition and contamination that attracts you? What draws you to this way of working?
MAM: Where I grew up in India, surrounded by agriculture and gardening, there is a lot of trash and discarded agricultural material. You see how decomposition happens around you. It’s simple. You see mushrooms appearing and growing in the rainy season; even in the mud houses of the village, because of the way they were constructed, there was mold mycelium inside, and I saw mushrooms popping up from the ground. As an artist, I observe these small details in my surroundings. There is a conflict between the modern and these kinds of things; decomposition, rot, smells, and cracks are not allowed in the modern India, but they are very common phenomena in the environment. These words are used in a negative way, as metaphors in a political or social context, and we always try to avoid and prevent these phenomena. Even in art history we see a tendency to preserve, but it is a struggle to prevent decay or failure. There is a conflict between how nature exists and how we are forced into playing a role within it.
BW: You are coming to the end of your two-year residency at the Rijksakademie. What has the impact been? How have you been using your studio space and time? What has changed for you?
MAM: It has been intense. The workshops are fascinating. I have been using quite subtle technology, but it is very crucial in my work. For the last open studio, I used a microscopic image projected on the wall. This time, I’m using a dripping system of water within a process-based work. I had a lot of time to research, which is important because my material-based and research-based work takes a long time. It’s changed my work a lot, because I had time to immerse myself in research.
BW: Can you say something about the new work you recently presented at the Rijksakademie Open Studios, those who lived, those who were forced to leave, who stayed in between (2025)? There are photographic images on fabric surrounding a central circular form.
MAM: It is about an architecture that carries a lot of history and memory. Since my childhood, I’ve been curious about this well-designed concrete building in Bankura, my village in West Bengal, because it exists in an environment which is very different, all mud houses. There was a riot in the 1950s when, after Partition in 1947, the majority in India were forcing the minority to leave for either Bangladesh or Pakistan. During the attack from the majority, the people in the village took shelter in this building because it was the only proper house. Because a lot of houses burned, I chose charcoal as a residue. The charcoal tells us about the memory of a tree, but also about the destruction at that time. So, it’s a metaphor, too. The process is fascinating, you have to wash it off to get the image, which reflects how the memory exists in our heads—an unstable memory, not quite the same for everyone. There was also a well where women jumped in to kill themselves and avoid torture; this was happening in the 1950s, but there is a connection to what is happening right now in India. I’m showing the whole process. The water dripping onto the surfaces is slowly washing off the charcoal. The black water in the well is the residue from the washing of the charcoal.
BW: How did You Are What You Eat come about?
MAM: It is about what we eat and how that transforms and changes us. It is about the microbes and bacteria that we carry within us, that we inhale; they change our nervous system and behavior. I was inspired by The Mushroom at the End of the World, a book by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. There is a story that one mushroom appeared in the blasted landscape of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb in 1945. There was no life, but the mushroom popped up, fed by toxic radiation. There is also the very poetic connection that when Hiroshima was destroyed, the bomb created a mushroom-shaped cloud. New life comes, after life is destroyed. So, this work, too, is a kind of a metaphor, like a mushroom cloud.
BW: Your work is currently included in two group shows, in Warsaw and in Karlsruhe. Have you made new work for these exhibitions?
MAM: Synthesized Forest, which is being shown in Warsaw, was part of the exhibition I did for the last Rijksakademie open studio. I made an architectural space with chlorophyll, which is light sensitive. It will eventually change by virtue of the temperature as well as the light. For Karlsruhe, I made a new work inspired by three insect colonies—termites, ants, and bees—which I combined. The sculpture considers their different kinds of shapes, feeding habits, and tendencies to make colonies and live together. It is larger than human size, so you can walk around and become part of the ecosystem somehow, and see how these three colonies are connecting and coexisting.
Mondal’s work is included in “Soil and Friends” at Ujazdowski Castle, Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, through October 26, 2025, and in “Assembling Grounds. Practices of Coexistence,” ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, through August 2, 2026.
