Poetry & Art Exhibition by 14-Year-Old Artist and Poet Mehr Dhawan
New Delhi, September 26, 2025The College of Art, Tilak Marg, will host DUALITY, a unique poetry and art exhibition by 14-year-old artist and poet Mehr Dhawan, a Grade 9 student from Pathways School, Gurgaon. The exhibition will be inaugurated at 9:30 AM by Shri Vijay Bidhuri, Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forest.
DUALITY is an evocative exploration of the fragile balance between two worlds — one where nature is preserved and nurtured, and another where it is exploited and neglected. Through paintings, installations, and free-flowing verse, Mehr invites viewers to experience this tension, confront uncomfortable truths, and reflect on the choices that shape the future of our planet.
Her work blends visual storytelling with poetic narrative, making sustainability not just an intellectual concept but an emotional experience. From oceans “sliced open” by human excess to poems that give voice to silent forests, DUALITY challenges audiences to see beauty and destruction side by side — and choose hope over apathy.
Mehr’s artistic journey is rooted in a deep sense of environmental stewardship. At just three years old, she wished for a forest instead of toys. This early impulse grew into action — planting over 30,000 Lakshmi Taru trees with her mother, turning care for the earth into a lived practice.
Her installations, such as Sliced Sea (crafted from recycled candle wicks and twine) and The Cry Beneath the Surface (a resin fishbowl embedded with microplastic waste), have been widely recognized, earning acknowledgment from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and the Ministry of Environment & Forest. These works use discarded materials to spark dialogue on pressing issues like ocean pollution and plastic waste.
For Mehr, poetry is not just self-expression but survival — a way to anchor herself while amplifying the emotions and questions many others silently carry. Her poems breathe life into cities, forests, rivers, and oceans, urging readers to look closer and act with conscience.
By bringing art and poetry together in DUALITY, Mehr creates a space where imagination meets activism. Her work insists that young people are not passive inheritors of a broken world — they are active participants in its repair and reimagining.
The exhibition will be open for public viewing from 29th September to 29th October, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM daily.
