A golden lion sits on a decapitated tree trunk, its eyes obscured by a virtual reality (VR) headset. The whimsical sculpture, crafted in Mumbai-based artist Valay Shende’s signature style by welding metal discs together, is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on how the lion, with its home deforested and destroyed, has no choice but to check out of reality. 

The sculpture speaks volumes and, yet, we may never have known what alternate reality the lion chose to tune into had the artist not gone a step further and made a digital adaptation of the artwork. In this 3D-rendered video piece by Shende, we take a peek behind the big cat’s VR fantasy — a green forest, still lush and trilling with birdsong. The video then zooms out to show the lion once again with VR goggles on, sitting in a graveyard of felled trees.   

The impact is all the greater because we’re viewing this not on our phone, but on a large, museum-grade screen, framed and mounted like a canvas at the NewArtX studio in Worli, where the country’s very first digital art gallery is set to open later this year.