Recalibrating Indigenous Storytelling: Reading Subhash Vyam’s Water as a Decolonial Eco-testimonial Graphic Narrative

By contextualising the testimonial narrative within the framework of decolonial ecology, the article maps the cultural politics involved in the process of Indigenising the Western-dominated format of graphic storytelling, as enacted through the adoption of Indigenous art forms. The inquiry deciphers how the decolonial visual–verbal testimonial narrative envisages the embodied entanglement that the Indigenous subjectivities share with nature, defying the anthropocentric epistemologies and morphing into what we term decolonial eco-testimonial graphic narrative. Analysing various iconotextual motifs in Indigenous Gond art, the article investigates how Water (2017), by Indigenous Gond artist Subhash Vyam, acts as a decolonial eco-testimonial graphic narrative that testifies to the hydro-ecological injustices, bringing forth the disenfranchised experiences of his community. The article relays how, by conflating his personal testimony with the collective, Vyam challenges and politicises the traditional formats, transforming Water into a decolonial narrative that lays bare the invisible neoliberal power dynamics of systematic socio-ecological oppressions.