Prayers of Shaman -Invoking Healing Goddess

Magdalena:On:line
Bodies:On: Live

Performed Live on 25th June 2021 

https://onlinefestival.themagdalenaproject.org/

Prayer of Shaman –Invoking healing goddess is performance, shamanistic ritual act. It is to establish an image of the pandemic goddess who is a healer. Performer attempted to embody the body through a ritual turning into the Goddess of Pandemic. The performer's body facilitates transmuting the message to her and in the process becoming Goddess herself. 

I  carried on my head the image of the goddess which was a 'Mirror' that would reflect the image of the audience who is interacting with the goddess and there the transformation happens where the audience expects to see the image of a goddess instead they see their own reflection. here the audience takes the position of the goddess and I think everyone has the ability to achieve that state of sacredness and I facilitate to make it visible to my audiences.

The healing happens through various herbal healing plants. The performance deals with my audience through online interaction it will have an impact since every individual has their own psychological and emotional and physical concerns. My work is to build and inspired by the goddess image from my cultural roots but not directly portray it just hinting at my connection. Seeing pandemics from the past one and half years and the critical situations in India I feel like recreating this act again with one more version. This performance was cathartic and transforming not only to the audience but also to me as a performer. 

'Nature is a healer' forms a very integral part of my performance and I  used natural alchemical and medicinal plants  Sacred Plants which are curative and have a lot of health benefits like  Ajwain, ajowan, or Trachyspermum Ammi—also known as ajowan caraway, thymol seeds, bishop's weed, or carom, Neem Leaves, (Tulsi) Holy Basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum), Kama Kasturi l ( Ocimum basilicum). Tumbe plant (Leucas Aspera) and as part of invocation ritual I sowed Seven Scared grains for goddesses. These grains constitute Goddess's. It is an offering to evoke her to invite her to our ritual.  Prayer was offered to form a secret exchange in form of voice modulations. It was an experiential to both me and my audience a kind of spiritual and healing journey. 

In my performance, I had incorporated symbolic object which can metaphorically represent the goddess image but not a religious symbols. It is an artistic exploration to fight this pandemic, to experience catharsis, and create a healing space where both audience and myself can undergo transformation. I shared a  recipe to prepare a tea portion that has medicinal benefits and heals. Dimple B Shah 11 May 2021 Please note it was a different version from the earlier created work.

Dimple B Shah  25th June 2021 

Breathing Future- Crossover 2020-2021

Crossover 2020-2021 全球跨越 2020-2021 

Performed on 6th January 2021  Live Zoom Performance 

Indian female artist Dimple B Shah, dressed in a white lab coat, was conducting scientific research by holding a magnifying glass. In the white gauze cloud surrounded by layers, she blows white balloons one by one (the balloon shows the word "Extinction"), Blowing, squeezing, kinking, deforming, some swelling and exploding, some half-way frustrated with a desperate cry, and some make an unbearable cry of heart-cracking, and finally a warning appears The red balloon expanded, the warning lights flashed, and the red crisis filled the entire space, as if the universe was about to burst, suffocating people. .... Everything went back to zero, cows, sheep and plants appeared, and the only remaining human nature was stored in the closed and transparent Noah's Ark. At this time, amidst the mist-filled vast waste and almost invisible objects, a closed space capsule maintained the only remaining green plants, implying that human beings can only live in a closed environment with oxygen in the future. The situation set by the artist Shah, and the in-depth expression of human beings facing the plight, is intended to continuously arouse our current human thinking and concern about the future. 

Cai Qing Jan 9. 2021

印度女艺术家Dimple B Shah, 身着白色服装严然一个科研人员手持放大镜，在层层环绕的白纱云雾中，她一个接一个地吹着白色的气泡（气球上显出“毁灭”的字样），吹起、挤压，纽曲、变形，有的澎涨而暴炸，有的半路泄气发出绝望的呼声，更有发出令人不堪忍受的嘶心裂肺的叫声的，最终出现一个警示的红色气球，它渐渐大起来，警灯闪烁，危机涨满了整个空间，如同宇宙即将破裂，让人窒息。.....一切归零，出现牛、羊和植物，将人类仅存的自然存放入封闭透明的诺亚方舟。这时，在雾气弥漫，几乎看不见物象的苍茫的废虚上，一个封闭的空间胶囊中，维护着仅存的一点绿色的植物，寓意人类今后只能在封闭的环境中有氧可活。由艺术家Saha设置的局，和不断深入的，面对我们人类面临的困境的表达，意在不断地引起我们当下人类对未来的思考和关注。

Survival and Coexistence

For Bio-Network Event on 15th of May 2020 

Performance During Lockdown

The proposed project is a response to the Covid19 pandemic situation. This project is to understanding and decoding social singular body in the context of Nature and ecology and changing the social setup in the pandemic period it is a triangular tie-up, where every individual and artist are left to be alone in isolation (Quarantined). Humans are social being and during this period we have to maintain social distancing and isolation and lonely time it creates a psychological problem. We are not used to staying without socializing. We are coming in terms of our existence and are confronting our mistake and exploitation of nature the imbalance created and destruction of our whole ecosystem. We are trying to understanding the cause of this pandemic and how to fight this. We already broke the rules of Nature and the ecosystem. We failed to understand the importance of our coexistence of other living beings. The world is changed for us; we have lost our freedom to unknown things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqSh34U-y7M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmqmPuNkTfw

Dimple B Shah 2020

A Laboratory for Survival (Performance During Lockdown)

performative act for the camera which was done for a series of

Coronavirus Artpocalypse_ The Art World Responds - 

Part 2 by Waswo Waswo X Artists series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tj85hZNcWw&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2r03s7GMmLGjZi1Pk6va9rBrtqAXx000poiTLTGBtvsEScodK8BZYa2_c 

This work was down during the Lockdown period in March and my reaction as performance artists acting as Virologist, Studying oneself as a body in the time of COVID 19.    I created the whole lab space in the Living room with all my collection of laboratory jars. It was a metaphoric representation to understand the invisible virus and how one could fight with it there different psychological state where I am trying to breathe through my hand gloves and almost feeling breathlessness and taking it to a terrace where I am getting wrapped in food wrapping foil again to protect my body but a paradoxical act where I  feel suffocated and breathlessness and finally the maketh the positive act of burning a maketh of coronavirus and turning it to ashes it very surreal and abstract imagination of virologist. 

Paradde to the "TIMES OF YORE"

Performance, a walk around the College Street, 26 Jan, Kolkata, 2015

Making connection to historical aspects of Kolkata was the key idea in this performance. The city Kolkata is one of the oldest city, ruled by East India Company, the buildings are as old as 150 to 200 hundred years and every stone of the city embedded with history. In this performance I viewed the city through an archaeological perspective and performed as archaeologist who want to collect all the evidences of historical Kolkata and in the process becoming like a socialist who is bringing the essence of city in the present times, who also stands for protest and revolution every time.

This performance was collaborated with common people as audience, who had their part of intervention, when they lend their voice for the performance, shouting "Ey amaar Kolkata, ey tomaar Kolkata" thereby reclaiming their own city.

Dimple B Shah

2015

Law of Attraction

Performance on the pedestrians of National College and its surroundings, K R Road, Basavanagudi, 6th June 2014.

The fourth work in the series. intervention was with college students and common people who don’t know what they actually want, like If I had known early in my life my connection with art, it might have taken me to greater discoveries. Due to present day competitions and pressure, the younger generation is under lot of stress to choose fields which are more in demand rather than pursuing what their actual dreams are.

Through my Performance Intervention and Interaction, I wanted them to write and read what they actually want. I created a big mirror installation on which the audience was asked to write their dreams and that would be shown to the universe so that in some way their wishes would be fulfilled.  

This performance was based on the belief that "like attracts like" by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results. It is based on the idea that people and their thoughts are both made from "pure energy", and the belief that like energy attracts like energy. A circular mirror was used to show their real dream and what actually they can become. The audiences were also given a small card with small mirror attached to it so that they could remind themselves and revisit again and again their actual self and dreams.

Dimple B Shah

2014

Forgotten Faces Reliving Past

Basavanagudi Live Art Project performed at footpath next to Ramakrishna Math, 2014

"We need open minds and open hearts when we wrestle with the past and ask questions of it, and the answers it will provide are in nobody's pocket…We should let nobody tell us that they know all that it contains, or try to prescribe or constrain in advance what it has to tell us" - Eamon Duffy, "Faith of our Fathers".

This was my first performance for Basavangudi Project, this performance was about forgotten faces/looking back into important era, a period development of this area from days of its origin. The foundation laid down by great personalities. Remembering their contribution towards development of this area and overall society and looking at the transition over the decades and looking at the present issues connecting past and present.

Since it was first Intervention for this area, I wanted to flip the past to present and introduce my audience with cultural and heritage aspects of one of oldest area of Bangalore. In this performance I dealt with historical aspect of this area, people and issues of senior citizens. Through this performance my attempt was not only to introduce images of famous personalities of the area but also wanted senior citizens to come out and share their bit of past with us who were witness to that era. This was done by myself performing with costume of old time Jubba, Panche and Mysore Peta, my face was covered with black cloth metaphorically representing forgotten personalities and their contributions.

I was also carrying in my hand custom made umbrella with images of famous personalities which  metaphorical represented that we are under their shades and also I circulated one post card with above quotation to audiences and during  the performance I interacted with audience questioning whose image it was and  circulated copies of photos of famous personalities with their names on it, which audiences were suppose to take with them and dig into the history about them. In this process, to my surprise one senior citizen came out with enthusiasm and shared his experience and story of his time and also sang and narrated shloka. This performance was an attempt to reach all kinds of audience, from college students to local people, like auto driver, working women, senior citizens etc.

Dimple B Shah

2014

To cleanse from within

Dimple B Shah gives an expression to catharsis through Paintings, Installations and Sculptures

Dimple Shah with her paintings. Photo: Sangeetha Devi Dundoo, The Hindu.

The first installation that greets visitors at Kalakriti Art Gallery is a shower chamber, which Dimple B Shah calls the ‘Katharsis Chamber’. The curtains of the shower place bear psychological theories of Carl Rogers, the process of Calcination and the glass walls of the chamber are lined with rows of tiny bottles. Nothing is here for ornamentation of by accident, says the artist. The bottles are filled with shreds of hair, nails and ash. An recorded audio completes the picture providing the sound of water streaming in.

‘Kartharsis in Forbidden Zones’ is an exhibition of installations, paintings and sculptures that communicate Dimple’s ideas. It took her three and a half years to complete this series, she tells us. “The installations took time. Once I worked on the concept and made detailed sketches, I took help of carpenters and technicians who cut acrylic sheets, wooden and iron planks. I scouted junk shops and found a 100-year-old shop selling old bottles and sourced these for the installation. For another installation, I needed wheels of a cart and after much trial and error, I travelled to Baroda to find the kind of wheels I was looking for,” she says. 

Dimple’s paintings reflect her study of metals, their properties and their effect on our lives. While studying art in Glasgow, she researched on Jain philosophy and imagery. “I came across a book on metals, alchemy and equated what I read to the seven basic planets in astrology and the seven chakras described in yoga. I learnt about lead and it’s correlation to Saturn. I read that nail samples of criminals have an increased lead content in them. I also came to know that women have more traces of copper in them. It was fascinating as I dug deeper into metals and the way they affect us,” she explains. In one of her paintings, Dimple uses a chameleon to represent the changing state of mercury. A glass jar with a sample of the metal corresponding to her paintings and a page from her workbook, detailing her paintings and installation are there for the audience to correlate and introspect.

Dimple completes her work through a performance. She’s been supplementing her work with a performance since her college days in 2001. Her performance has no dialogues, doesn't fall strictly into the realms of theater though Dimple has studied theater. For an earlier exhibition titled Saffron Borders, she gave vent to people’s fear psychosis in the aftermath of the Godhra riots by encircling herself with a ring of fire and reacting to it. “This is the way I connect with people through a visual medium of Painting, Sculpture, Installation of expressing my thoughts by way of performance,” she says. 

What’s interesting is this artist did her bachelors in commerce before shifting gears to fine arts. “After B. Com I realized I was truly interested in arts and did a five-year bachelor course in visual arts, followed by masters in M.S University, Baroda and one year in Glasgow,” she smiles. As a parting shot, she admits installations don’t come cheap. “I am yet to sell any of  them. But I don’t think of returns when I work on an idea,” she says.

Sangeetha Devi Dundoo,

The Hindu, Hyderabad, March 8, 2013

"Kartharsis in Forbidden Zones" an exhibition of Paintings, Illustrations, Prints & Sculpture 

is on at Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad till March 13.

A CITY OF FLEX - Review by Marta Jakimowicz

Re-flex, the latest project at Bar1 (February 11 to 25), furthered its understated yet quite extraordinary engagement with the city, its character reflecting the approach of Christoph Storz, or Estee Oarsed, whose European and Indian sides seemed to complement each other here as, within his stressing the collaborative process, the curator and theoretician of the event and a participant. 

Remaining an unobtrusive yet vital stimulant, more than a guide, for younger artists in a largely collective effort, he drew their attention once again to the humble qualities of an ordinary, if oppressive, aspect of urban reality for it to reveal some of the nature of this society, on the one hand, and, on the other, actual or subversive connections between the language of art and life. 

The focus was on the omnipresence of flex, the cheap, crudely slick and quick-decaying material for short-span, large-scale advertising which recycled as makeshift protection from the elements ignores the original messages. The artists were asked to refer to the normal practice and either print something on flex or re-use already printed sheets in their own ways in the expectation of appropriating or commenting on popular culture, its imagery, content and aesthetics and possibly interpreting the physicality and sculptural potential of two-dimensional flex to perhaps reflect on it as a novel art medium. 

Of the over twenty artists only a few directly addressed the physical condition of flex, the prime being Storz’s sagging wigwam, an older work now transformed in collaboration with hole-making rats, the fragility of his art bound to that of patterns of living. Whereas Shivaprasad S. with friends somewhat literally used flex to announce his documentary project and Sheela Gowda printed on it the raw innards of smashed advertising light boxes as evidence of socio-political vengeance, Oarsed again diverted the dominant iconography and hierarchy of political posters with their rows of heads and enlarged leader figures to bring out the underlying violent hypocrisy, all the more convincing against a collection of regular banners. 

Socio-political response prevailed elsewhere too, Alaka Rau P effectively turning recycled sheet-raincoats into emblems of humanity under advertisement deluge, and Mangala A M’s briefs paid sarcastic homage to the inert might of the bureaucrat. Spectacular as three-dimensional forms plying with surface flatness, the works of Biju Joze, V G Venugopal and Aishwaryan K were not immediately clear speaking about confiscation of flex by authorities, loudness of advertisements and politicians’ sham gestures. 

Suresh Kumar Gopalareddy and Dimple B Shah built complex, architectural environments evoking the position of farming metamorphosing and disappearing amid urbanisation and shabbiness of slums, while Prakash L and Anjana Kothamachu alluded to advertising images and words to denounce their environmental conscience and seductive power. Others took a more positive attitude to re-use the ugly material converting it into things of expressiveness, utility and beauty. 

If Charitha made umbrellas with her parents’ faces in half-shade, Suresh Kumar Gopalareddy embellished it with traditional beads, Smitha Cariappa, Archana Prasad and Meghana Rao had handbags and an apron stitched - elegant, poetically flimsy or mischievously juxtaposing existent figures, Mohammad Yunees and Ameer conjured a big scarecrow and tiny wind wheels, while Shiva Prasad K T, Mohan Kumar T and Urmila V G threaded bits of flex into alluring serpentine beings and a chandelier. 

Re-shaping aesthetic sides and fragments of printed flex for decorative and painterly abstract qualities, Chaitra Puthran, M G Kulkarni and Rakesh Kallur created unassumingly light works, whilst Ravi Shah took a simple, direct action painting and sculpting with the rough, flexible surface for tangible, valid discoveries. 

Display being inherently important to the collaborative endeavour, one appreciated the instances when original banners linked with the works referring to them, even though the expected dominance of vast faces as in the city space did not come through, its sporadic examples locating mutual enhancement beside the large equivalent by Shivaprasad S or opposite the glamorous female in Biju Joze’s piece. The much crowded, even invasive whole indeed captured and refigured some of the street reality while often connecting and contrasting individual works. 

Although the roughness and rawness of some pieces were adequate to the source of inspiration, one wondered why not so many of the participants wished to adopt and react to the overwhelming crudeness of the reality that holds its own expressiveness, preferring instead interpretations either dictated by distanced and frequently not evident commentary or by an aesthetised re-structuring that sometimes tended to depart too much from the inherent properties of the material. Such reservations notwithstanding, the exhibition was an exceptional eye opener.

Marta Jakimowicz, Feb 26, 2012

Article from: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/230313/a-city-flex.html

RE-FLEX - An essay about a new medium.

Re-flex, the latest project at Bar1 curated by Christoph Storz, or Estee Oarsed

Whether you like it or not, in recent years the banners and hoardings on vinyl, flex etc., are an integral part of the visual city. Bengaluru, with its lax regulations, is plastered with stretches of flex wherever you look. Put up for a short while, they catch your attention and then disappear again. Later the same flex may reappear in a less official role as protective covers against rain and dust. In this second life, the imagery on the material gets ignored. Features of local operators blown up to the size of statesmen might end up upside down, as covers for tempos, makeshift shacks and pushcarts. The second life flex authoritatively negates any pretence and come back into the world of things, where surface is just surface. 

The exhibition curated by Bar1/No Bars, artists and going-to-be artists responded to the public presence of flex and appropriated it in their own ways. 28 artists (Aishwaryan K, Alaka Rau P, Ameer, Anjana Kothamachu, Archana Prasad, Biju Joze, Chaitra Puthran, Charitha, Christoph Storz , Dimple B Shah, Estee Oarsed, Mohan Kumar T, Mangala A M, Meghana Rao, M G Kulkarni, Mohammed Yunees, Prakash L, Rakesh Kallur, Ravi Shah, Ravikumar S M Halli, Sheela Gowda, Shiva Prasad KT, Smitha Cariappa, Subramani J, Shivaprasad S, Suresh Kumar Gopalreddy, Urmila V G and VG Venugopal) were the artists who participated in the show from all over the Bangalore.

- Christoph Storz, or Estee Oarsed

From Left - Alka, Rau P, Dimple B Shah, Ravi Shah, Smitha Carriappa, Aishwaryan K, Biju Joze, Suresh Kumar Gopalreddy, Subramani J, Shivaprasad S, Ravikumar S M Halli, Mangala A M, Rakesh Kallur & Anjana K.