The Harvest of Broken Promises

Pankaj Tiwari grew up in a farming family in northern India. As a child, he watched his parents and neighbours work with methods that nourished rather than exhausted the soil, where ecological farming was the norm and nothing went to waste. Then the 1990s arrived. Companies like Monsanto stepped in with genetically modified seeds — most notably the well-known Bt cotton — which had to be repurchased every season. The promise was greater yields, prosperity, a better future. The reality turned out to be different: debt, depleted soil, and a growing number of farmers who could not hold on.

Tiwari has been living in Europe since 2019. Here he sees a growing desire for organic and "real" food, while in his home region, that very knowledge has been swept away by the same global systems. That contradiction lies at the heart of 'The Harvest of Broken Promises'.

Tiwari weaves his own childhood memories together with the stories of farmers from India and Europe. What he presents is a living portrait that serves as a mirror for a generation caught between the glittering promises of progress and the steady erosion of ancestral knowledge.

The performance premieres at Boulevard on Friday 7 August.