Ablutions

Anointing the statue with tumeric

In a state of displacement, the objects in the galleries do not simply represent what they depict, they become placeholders for an entire culture, evidence on view. Within this state they also become representations of their removal and the social, political, and cultural forces that threw them into displacement. They are citizens of a borderland, holding multiple, conflicting identities simultaneously. They are shifting signposts, embodying the history of the world and the realities of the present.

Schrödinger’s cat

Maybe a bit more about the synergy, the uniqueness, the particular hues of the radiance of the light created by your background, as one of our poets wrote, …  “I remember the laughter and gaiety of my people, the myriad colours of our polyglot races”

I wanted to respond to the above comment my mother left on my “Project Overview” page, because I think it gets to an important part of the project. Even as my body is the embodiment of the fractures of the past, it is also the continuation of my ancestor’s bodies, a testament to their survival, their refusal to be erased. I am intensely proud of this. I want their history to be read on my skin, I want to be a billboard for their identities.

But then there is Schrödinger’s cat. The observer determines reality*. In a state of quantum superposition I am many outcomes simultaneously. Alive/Dead, Black/White, Citizen/Foreigner, infinite possibilities collapse into one reality in the mind of the other. Here I am stripped of my agency. I am quantified, filed into the appropriate category, not the category I chose, the category chosen for me.

I need to search for a strategy to remain in that state of suspention before observation, to exist as multiple things simultaneously, to be alive and dead, black and white, citizen and foreigner. A true polyglot never has to choose, never has to take sides or prove loyalty. Without that freedom there is no joy. So perhaps this project is about turning a space that presents as authorative into a space of questioning, into the black lead box before the moment of observation, the moment when the cat is both alive and dead.

*yes, it is more complicated than this, but, bear with me, this is a blog about art anyway

A Collecting Odyssey

“There is a particularly close connection between classical Indian dance and figurative sculpture. Many of the gods are shown dancing, others adopt postures from a dancer’s repertory, and the gestures of the hands are common to both artistic forms. Indian sculptors have explored the art of dancing to express movement through form more thoroughly than any other sculptors, with the possible exception of Degas in France.”

-Pratapaditya Pal from “A Collecting Odyssey: Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian art from the James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection”

Beginning

I will be using this blog as an online manifestation of a performance project I am currently working on. It will contain research, thoughts, and context. It is my hope that as the project develops this will become a place for viewers to learn more about the ideas behind the performance and share their reactions to the piece.

I am in the process of creating a proposal for a performance that would take place in the Alsdorf Galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago. I see the project as a way of reacting to the space in its entirety: the physical space, the objects in it, the history of the space and the objects, as well as the relationship between the space and the larger environments (museum, school, city, nation) that it occupies.