Project Proposal

LACUNA
Performance Proposal
Maya Mackrandilal

I cannot right old wrongs.
Waves tire of horizon and return.
-Derek Walcott

The individual is not a discreet, self-contained being, but a node on an infinite network of associations. The body, at its roots, its building blocks, connects us to our histories, both great and personal. To truly be in the world, as a complete individual (the fullest expression of ourselves), one must search for strategies to live amid full knowledge of the past—to find its truth, no matter how difficult.

OVERVIEW
The proposed pair of performances are part of a larger, long-term trans-disciplinary project that includes an exploration of the position of the Museum in relation to the histories, both great and personal, that it encounters through the act of collection. I have chosen to focus this project on the Alsdorf Galleries—as a member of the South Asian Diaspora I feel especially connected to the historical and cultural questions embodied there. With an overwhelming focus on figurative sculpture the objects housed in the space are, in a sense, displaced bodies, bodies that carry the history of colonialism and the scars of violence and exploitation alongside a cultural memory of the past. I too carry these histories and these memories. My flesh is the embodiment of my ancestors’ desires as well as their trauma. I intend to use my body as a divining rod, to search for the strategies and language necessary to further my research and artistic production. In so doing I hope to alter the viewer’s relationship to this space, to incite moments of contemplation in the space between objects, in their relation to one another, and to the body. In this way the performance is a dynamic act, the “solution” embedded in the act of questioning itself. It is an attempt to open the space of the gallery to an infinite field of associations, dispersing the river of people flowing past into a fertile flood plane of slower movement and richer contemplation.

EXECUTION
The two performances embody separate but interrelated modes of gaining knowledge through the body:

The first performance will be “public” and would take place during museum hours. For a three-hour duration I plan to alternate between two actions, sweeping and posing. Using a broom from Guyana, given to me by my mother, I will sweep the space. The action is a way of disclosing the space through use, of being an active subject within it. Through the sound of the broom sweeping I will alter the viewer’s aural experience of the area, a compliment to the rhythmic sound of passerby that is always ebbing and flowing within the gallery. The sweeping action will be interspersed with periods of stillness where I will attempt to hold a pose based on my memory of performing classical Indian dance as a child. This stillness is a way of becoming momentarily absent, of sacrificing the agency associated with movement and aligning myself as an object of contemplation within the space. Embedded in this action is failure—I can never really become as “still” and “authentic” as the bodies that surround me, thus oscillating between subject and object, presence and absence. While an audience (the museum visitor) is essential for this performance, the focus is not on orchestrating an experience. Rather, the viewer is essential because it is I who will be learning from them as I search for a more complete experience of the space. The viewers form a micro-community by inhabiting the space together (even if only for a few moments)—their actions effecting each other’s experience of the space and thus my understanding of it. I also plan to create a short audio piece, a personal poetic text that would allow viewers to connect on a different level to the performance. This will create a layered experience, expanding the levels of engagement between the audience and myself. The audio piece would be available online as a podcast that could be downloaded to a personal media player by people I invite to the event, as well as through a smart-phone for visitors who happen upon the piece and wish to enter into it further.

The second performance will be “private,” taking place when the museum is closed. Here I will be interacting with the galleries as architecture (as opposed to the “lived space” of the open Museum). The performance will take place for an hour and would involve myself and a videographer to document the piece. I will enter the space with a stack of seven saris. I will position myself in the open space at the east end of the galleries, my figure framed by the twin stairways leading to the second floor of the museum. I would stand with my back to the entryway and face west. I will then wrap the saris around my body in slow movements, one by one. After this is completed, I will circumambulate the gallery, shedding each sari to mark my path as I walk. This action fuses together two concepts gleaned from South Asian culture. The first is a reference to Draupadi, the heroine of the Mahabharata, who is given the gift of an endless sari to protect her when enemies capture her, threatening her body. The second is a concept embedded in South Asian temple design—by circumambulating a building a pilgrim is symbolically taking the building inside of them (and since the building is a manifestation of the divine body, taking the divine into their body as well). Through the fusion of these acts I am shedding one idea of body (the sari as dressing on the wounds of the past) as I am simultaneously absorbing another idea of body (the sculptures as manifestations of their history as emblems of colonial exploitation as well as containers of beliefs and sacred energy, eternally available to be accessed and interpreted in innumerable ways).

SPECIAL REQUESTS
I would like to request that a video artist I am collaborating with be present during the two performances so that my exploration can be translated beyond the walls of the museum and reach a larger audience. I would also like to ask permission to have an assistant during the public performance who would field questions from viewers and hand them a small card that would contain a statement I will write about the piece as well as directions for downloading the audio portion of the performance.

Another aspect of this project involves a more direct, research-based investigation of these objects and the space. I would like to request access to the curatorial papers associated with the objects housed in the Alsdorf Galleries in order to glean inspiration for drawings, an artist book, and an audio piece that I am developing.

CONCLUSION
While in many ways this project is a personal artistic exploration of associations within the Museum, it engages with a larger public in important ways. The museum and visitors will inevitably be enriched by my active engagement with the space and the concepts I develop through my research and performances. It is my hope that viewers of the public performance will carry their experience with them to other parts of the museum, considering larger connections throughout the space. I also see this piece in conversation with “Public Notice Three” by Jitish Kallat, which can be glimpsed from the Alsdorf Galleries. The Public Notice series is about drawing forth the words of the past into the present, of letting them resound in space and embed themselves in our contemporary experience. I feel that my engagement with the past is another manifestation of the concepts explored in Kallat’s installation. As this project moves into the gallery space (the MFA thesis exhibition and beyond) it will interact with audiences outside the Museum, stimulating further thought and discourse around the collection.

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him – that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.
-Swami Vivekananda