Iris Yingzen

Around ninety per cent of the population of Nagaland belong to Indigenous groups who are suffering under India’s rapid modernization pressure. The fight for sovereignty after India’s independence in 1947 led to decades of conflict with the Indian army. Militant groups turned inward, trapping civilians in cycles of violence. As abuse and killings escalated, drugs and alcohol numbed a generation to the turmoil. Between 1997 and 2007, Iris Yingzen witnessed brutality firsthand. She saw young men return from torture and imprisonment, their psyches shattered, and many unable to survive long after their release. She watched grief consume other women.

As a young mother troubled by her own children growing up amid armed conflict, Yingzen began guerrilla gardening in 2005 at an electric post once used for torture and neglected as a garbage dump right outside her home. Slowly, she planted iris, callas, and lilies over the waste—a quiet act of defiance, rewriting the narrative of a place that once held collective trauma. Initially met with resistance from neighbors, the project gradually earned their support—they stopped throwing garbage there and began protecting the garden.

Garden of Hope reflects the transformation of this site in six large-scale paintings. They depict mothers, wives, sisters, a family, neighbors, and the artist herself—those who have endured conflict and grief. The artist stands alone, lost in contemplation. She begins to plant saplings with the help of two students. We watch the site transform as neighbors join the gardening—an evocative representation that honors women who have endured conflict yet continue to rebuild through grief, community, and renewal.

Text: Somrak Sila