ICP alum and faculty member Sara Hylton launched her debut book Ganges River on Wednesday, June 24 at the Magnum Foundation, 59 East 4th Street. The book is part of Lost V , a set of eight monographs from artists working around the world, published by Kris Graves Projects (KGP) Monolith. The evening included book signings by all eight artists: Christian Lee, Duquann Sweeney, Elliot Ross, Gia Han, Ike Edeani, Jules Slutsky, Matt Licari, and Sara Hylton.
The Ganges River is one of the world’s largest, worshipped by a billion Hindus as Mother Ganga, a living goddess with power to cleanse the soul. Yet it has also become one of the world’s most polluted rivers, with plastic waste estimated at more than 6,000 tons flowing out of it every year. In 2019, Hylton joined a female-led research expedition studying how, why, and what types of plastics were entering the Ganges and eventually reaching the ocean. From nylon fishing nets to environmental activists fighting to protect the river, she spent three years documenting this complex issue and the efforts to mitigate future harm.
The book Ganges River is currently available for pre-order.
Hylton said: “I spent many years traveling along the Ganges, witnessing the river change as much as I did. When I first stepped into its holy waters in the fall of 2010, I was consumed by the amorphous grief of my father’s sudden death. I sought answers to the unanswerable. A decade later, when I sprinkled its frigid, pristine waters on my head in the Indian Himalayas, I hadn’t known it would be my final visit. India had transformed, as had I. I was no longer welcome there, blacklisted by the Indian government. As the river had first taught me years earlier, I was once again being asked to surrender to life’s current…”
Images: Sara Hylton
