From Here to There

Live Action 11, 10th September 2017 

Lejontrappan Goteburg ,Sweden
Last Day of performance Festival 

This performance was performed at canal side where boats come in, although this canal is used as tourist Spot, but in the past I think it would have used as entry point at Lejontrappan Goteborg. I choose this spot deliberately since these acts as a situation for my audiences. Acting as entry point for refugees to come in boats with life jackets, refugees who have lost their homes left their country and survived to reach one of these European countries. This performance was a subtle act about concern related to migrations. I wanted to see how receptivity and acceptability of refugees by local Population, I could see in their eyes when they thought I am one of migratory/refugee, asking for help and they started ignoring my work and me. My performance started in other side of the road where lot of pigeons comes for food and hence they left lot of feathers as I was mentally preparing for my performance. I collected many feathers from the spot and after some time I moved to other side toward the river where boats come in. 

I started building small dream home first from the feathers as base and on top pasting plastic toy homes which are colorful. I moved to the spots near boat and people were lining up for entry in boat. I could see the reaction from people they did not want to have eye contacts I felt some doubt in their eyes I was also wearing belt which looked like refugee or police Suit. Slowly back to position and started building home and which was tied to my head and I was carving Chalk piece which replicated like destroyed home from Syria and also tired to give away cards which had images of this broken home and destroyed city and people the general public who were lining up were avoiding me then few came to me and asked as I tried to give card with image of this dilapidated building and home they just did not want to accept. 

I was trying to read their mind may be they don’t like refugees coming or they did not want to give spaces and very clearly it was showing up they were not happy about lot of people migrating to their country the acceptability is not so easy they feel lot of insecurity about migrating people coming to their city.Then my act unfolded with floating the feather and dream homes in water this was in hope people in far off land will see and will give them some space for migrating population who have lost their home in their country. 

Dimple B Shah 20 April 2017

Photo by Chuyia Chia

The Silent Whisper

Childhood Toys disappears, but fond memories remain

Live Action 11 First Day of Performance Festival Performance inside Train from Goteborg to Trollhalten, and in Trollhalten Sweden 6th September 2016 

In this performance my attempt was to build a connection with my audience through objects of memory. The memories of childhood have lasting impression and impact in our mind. These memories of childhood are Pure, naïve and embedded with innocence. In this work my attempt was to build an endless connection with my audiences through objects of childhood which are mundane and lost its importance when grown up, but remains as keys to open doors to our childhood memories and also finds special space in our home whenever one want to connect to the past. My idea was to create situations for audience, where audience could experience the space I come from. Every individual person comes from diverse cultural and geographical background. Every cultural has it unique language and coded language, gesture which are unique; my idea was to bring this unique experience to my audience and evoke with new experiences.

The performance had started much before we reached the spot Trollhaltan, Sweden, Performance in Transit inside the train where I created a mood with sound and slowly Mauritz Tistelö also joined with hand full of grass. The sound created a meditative mood for me to involve myself to childhood memory I was making sound by using small toy which was given by Linda Mary Montano for me it toy reminded me of my childhood memory and also symbolically replicated self in some way.

we reached the Trollhalten and spot for performance, where I interacted with my audience by working on different sensory level like food and color and objects like kitchen toys from my place and with visual images of objects of my collection. These personal objects of memories are extremely important and plays important role in developing ones emotional stability and transcending the meaning which leads to sublime blissful feeling. This object are integral part of my life I presented this objects kitchen toys to my audience to play home game and create a situation for exchange secret code each individual reacted and connected to objects differently in way they could connect and get involved themselves to play home game through their perception and experiences. It was like building karmic connection through the act. It was basically about the relationship between humans and their memories of childhood.

As Alan Radley discusses, memory is a practice through which we “engage with the material world”. It is within this space that we recuperate the traces of ourselves and of the past, even if what we wish to do is forget about it; or, in fact, erase it.

Memory is sources of personal identity images of past perception, perception of experience we had, frequency of process that links different experiences in an individual memory. Memories goes beyond individual which is collective memory, the memory of a nation, culture and society, it is constructive in nature and links past to present, how do society remember this it through monuments, stories, literature, oral history and objects.

It is also process of making lost moment visible once again. Ordinary objects symbolizes experience, aspiration and identity without the object stories would lack vibrancy without the stories they lack significance taken together the object / images of the object and stories that evoke, lead the viewers on journey where the common place is transformed into remarkable stuff of history which is highly personalized. There might be events that transform ordinary things into irreplaceable carrier of identity emotion and memory this object help us finds way forward relics that are associated with tremendous powerful events it does matter how does ordinary things is not just ordinary any more.

Whether as a site, agent, or purveyor of memory, objects and the collections they comprise serve to inform us of the past in the present and communicate identities. Memory is a liminal space, made possible through a process of construction and conflation. memory is not just an individual, private experience but is also part of the collective domain, Recent research and theorizing in cultural memory has emphasized the importance of considering the content of cultural identities in understanding the study of social relations and predicting cultural attitudes. 

“Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.” - Walter Benjamin"

  Dimple B Shah 2017

  Photo credit to  Ah Qiang

Mapping Sacred Spaces

Live Action 11, 8 September 2016 

 Bältesspännarparken.,Goteborg, Sweden

This performance was about marking the sacred space, the earth; the land is becoming non livable / inhabitable space it is stained by bloodshed the blood of innocent and common people. The whole world is slowly becoming space of war zone which is divided into sacred and non sacred spaces. Every moment we are seeing these global phenomenon happing people are losing their home their city their country and are migrating to unknown and different land and finally end up as refugee or lose their life in process. 

The whole world smells the blood, blood of innocent men women and children. Slowly world is becoming like hell where there is no space for humanity, love and compassion it is war for power money and politics.

Through this performance my attempt was to bring as sense of the psychological state of people who are refugees in some other land. Bring attention to their struggle, the tension and striving for existence. Through this performance I brought attentions, concerns related human psycho-sociological condition where they strive for their existence, hope of life, dream and Breath freely. Performance was to bring this unknown struggle through action and marking human territories in sacred and non sacred space.

Through ritualistic act of carrying the turmeric root in my mouth all through the performance was to reciprocate psychosocial tensions through act of body tension I emphasized on to the struggle to maintain faith in sacredness, humanity and make sacred space for living. The slow act of showering turmeric powder on the floor mapping and marking the space into sacred space this was long performance about an hour, where I tried to build faith in humanity, sacred, pure and healing space. 

Turmeric acts as healing agent and also transforming agent in performance, later this whole situation of sacred space was turned in to non sacred space when the act changed. Now I entered into second layer of tension where the weight of homelessness, the refugee and migration came into picture metaphorically through balancing act where at one point I tied salt and knife on wooden stick and other point bag of belonging, memoires of homeland.

The weight of this belonging was heavier to carry while balancing myself through situation I tried to mark the pain through water this changed my sacred space into non sacred space it represent stains of blood of innocent men women and children from war zone, it had stained with broken dreams it stained with broken homes. 

This was inevitable act and a fact that it cannot be hidden or erased and then I tried to heal myself by pouring more turmeric on my body and whole act was mix of healing and pain, but stain remained and it’s up to the people how it can be solved and turned back  into sacred space again.

Dimple B Shah 

April 6, 2017

Photography  By Christian Berven

BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE AND OF THE PEOPLE

Art Protest - Performance inside the gallery Space 30 minutes 3rd day of Art Marathon 

Venkatappa Art Gallery, Bangalore May 11 2016 

Art Marathon was 3 days event. We (artists)were  staging different artistic events in order to involve larger public and also showcasing hundreds of artists from Bangalore and around the state, where over hundred artists are showing creative works Paintings, Sculptures, Performance and Poetry etc. 

The third day of marathon I had reserved my performance for indoor space I Performed BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE AND OF THE PEOPLE’  First Two day of performance was outdoor on streets of Cubbon park Mg road and around the Museum area.The performance on third and last day started by mapping the gallery space with Rangoli powder and the constant stamping action of Floor plan (Map) Stamp  of Venkatappa Building on hundreds of Xerox  copies of constitutional preamble Stressing on point that the Venkatappa art Gallery is public art gallery and public has their full  right on it and it should remain public it should not be given to any private entity.

 

The act of stamping map on Xerox copies was backed up my voice stressing on importance of Voice of people by shouting ‘BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE AND OF THE PEOPLE’ basically to convey that VAG is for the people and by people and of the people. While Shouting this I was also marking (outlining footprint) of people by chalk showing their presence in the gallery symbolically denoting that the voices of common people cannot be ignored by the Government. This performance had quite a impact on audiences as continues sound of stamping stressed on Point of voices to be heard.

Dimple B Shah, 2016