00:00When I received the invitation from Siddharth, the curator of this exhibition
00:08I was immediately excited because I was like, this is my ticket to go to Shantiniketan
00:13You know, I've been thinking about it, dreaming about it
00:30🎶
00:50You know, I've never really had the opportunity to visit Shantiniketan
00:55So I was immediately excited to really feel the vibration of this place
01:03which sort of resonates across the artistic world so much
01:08especially with the legacy of Tagore
01:11And ironically, when I came here, what I experienced was a cyclone
01:17and the Kopai river had breached its banks and half of Shantiniketan was drowned
01:27and overwhelmed by a deluge
01:31And immediately it became a really important point of reference for me
01:39because over the years, my relationship as an artist has been with landscape painting
01:45Over the years, I've been thinking a lot about landscape and distress
01:51I cannot anymore look at a landscape without thinking about ecology
01:59So ecology has played a large part in my critical understanding of our relationship with the planet
02:11And as an artist, I'm really wanting to reflect on that state
02:18especially because I live in a place like Goa
02:20which also sits on this really fragile, vulnerable, ecological place
02:29So it became very obvious to me that I was going to use this moment of coming to Shantiniketan
02:39in a state of flood to reflect on that in my performance
02:44which is why I've called this piece, When Land Becomes Water
02:50So it's that moment when land isn't land anymore
02:58So that's what was my inspiration for this biennial
03:04Increasingly, I've been thinking a lot about the personas from a place of
03:10to add, in a sense, to this layer of distress that I've just talked about with landscape
03:16that I've been preoccupied with
03:18I think my personas sort of reflect that
03:22In this case, I was thinking a lot about presenting myself as someone who would have
03:29either be entering the rituals around death or be coming from the rituals around death
03:35which is why I kind of shaved my beard and my head
03:39and sort of wore this white kurta and dhoti in a way to allude to that
03:50And I began the performance with using a technique that one uses in Budo
03:55which is a Japanese expressionistic dance form where you blacken the inside of your mouth
04:00And so the charcoal that I had was a very useful tool for me to kind of chew
04:06and this charcoal and eat and consume the material that I'm going to work with
04:11and to use it as a way to kind of signify this very kind of dark persona
04:19So I was thinking a lot about mortality and I was thinking about our images around death
04:26And so my persona really came from that
04:33He's this kind of storyteller of Armageddon, of the end of the world
04:38And in this case, I drew an image of a deluge, of a completely submerged, of a submerged landscape
04:53And at the same time, even though this character kind of represents darkness, if you will
05:02there is still an endearing aspect to it
05:06And that's where I really kind of lean on melancholia
05:11So this idea of endearing sort of loss is also very much a part of this persona
05:21So you are kind of drawn to the darkness in a way where you know that it's a performance
05:34but also because you're curious to see where the hope is, you know
05:39And that's the anticipation I wanted to create
05:42Well, it's to, in a sense, take a critical stab at our obsession with speed
05:49You know, the fact that we live in a hyper-consumerist world where, you know
05:54the technology that surrounds us, culture around us has really become about disposability
06:00And, you know, and being, you know, always current is exhausting
06:09And so I really think that art, at least my art, wants to remember, you know, the slow way of doing things
06:19You know, the fact that a painting takes time to make
06:24And it's not just the time it takes to make the painting
06:27but the years of practice that goes into cultivating that skill, but also that form of expression
06:35to be able to use it in a way with command, you know, takes time
06:43And I'm really interested in processes of, you know, fermentation and marination and pickling
06:51and really kind of salting something and letting the salt kind of absorb itself into the meat, I want to say
07:01And I really do reflect on, you know, how a practice can, you know, counter that
07:19You know, and that's where, in a sense, also some of my politics lie, you know
07:23is to do things the old-fashioned way, you know, as opposed to do things instantaneously
07:31Where I want to remember that it used to take days to make a picture as opposed to the press of a thumb, you know
07:40And I want to think about that in the now, you know, in a contemporary world that is obsessed with, you know, instantaneous gratification
07:53Well, I'm trained as a painter, so that's really at the core of what I do as an artist
07:59It's really at the backbone of my kind of development as, you know, if I was to think about a skill, you know
08:09It would be, there would be two, actually
08:11One would be the painting and the other one would be performance
08:15And so these two Ps, in a sense, meet in this pod, you know, of live art and performance that I create
08:24But essentially, my relationship to image-making comes from a place of a painter
08:30And in a sense, even in this three-dimensional space, four-dimensional space with time as well
08:37The references are always to compositions around, you know, familiar compositions around painting
08:43So you're going to find familiar kind of still-life setups and familiar poses of figures that resemble classical painting
08:51Because we've understood our relationship to beauty through art history
08:57But also, it's important to not be committed to that part of art history
09:01It's also important to take what we do, but also to flip it on its back
09:06So I also have a critical relationship with art history
09:11I don't take it at face value, but I kind of deconstruct it and reconstruct it
09:17In order to, you know, find means of, you know, defying colonial constructions
09:25And kind of westernize ways of how we've been, how art and image-making has been canonized
09:31You know, so, you know, while there is these, when there is a reference to it
09:37There's also a certain level of irreverence towards this act of making a painting, you know
09:43And to not get precious about it, you know
09:46But to be, to have a fluid trusting relationship with it
09:51That, you know, it doesn't need to be something that happens in the privacy of my studio
09:57But I can take the live moment and use that moment to create like this
10:02Sort of composition on a two-dimensional surface, which has a long history and legacy
10:09Well, I think about the audience's presence not as a passive presence
10:14I think of them as a very active presence
10:17I am very aware of their gaze
10:20And, you know, in a way it almost feels
10:27Supernatural to feel the gaze of somebody on the back of your neck, you know
10:33And I feel that it's, I never made anything specifically for an audience
10:41But I think their presence is really important
10:44Because it really completes the cycle of looking at and being looked at
10:50And that's something that we share
10:52Because there's also a moment where I'm also looking at the audience as much as they are looking at me
10:57I'm returning their gaze
10:59And when we exchange the gaze, we also exchange power, you know
11:04And I think that's the place that I want to be
11:07And I want to share the kind of active space that I occupy with the audience
11:14Where, A, I'm not assuming what they are and who they are and what they're thinking
11:19But I am very aware that their presence over here is a choice
11:24And they continue to be present is also a choice
11:28Because I don't hold audience captive
11:32I don't plant them on seats
11:34I don't ticket them like they would be in a theatre
11:37But I allow them to freely exist in that space
11:41And allow for them to do the work they need to do to suspend their disbelief
11:47To say, no, we're not looking at Nikhil
11:49But we're looking at a performance by Nikhil
11:53So it's a game, you know
12:02And I think that the audience and audiences are generally willing participants in that game
12:09And they become very aware of the rules of that game
12:12And audiences take responsibility for maintaining the rules of that game
12:16So if somebody were to disrupt the performance, audience members would get up and say
12:20Hey, what are you doing? That's not yours, so don't touch it
12:23I don't have to do that
12:25So these boundaries, I think, you know, that get created
12:31Get created as a kind of consensual agreement that happens with an audience
12:38So I think of them as active
12:41I don't think of them as passive
12:43Well, you know, art is not something that needs to be put in a special
12:47Under a special, like, you know, vitrine
12:51I think art has to be woven into our daily lives
12:55It is the mirror that we reflect on
12:58And we not just reflect ourselves as bodies, but we reflect ourselves as people
13:03And I think it's really important that art steps outside of those
13:08Very clinical, alienating, institutional frameworks
13:12And, you know, we spoke a little bit about, you know, decolonization
13:17You know, I think that that's a very important role that a place like the Bengal Biennale plays
13:24It's because it says that, you know, you have to take the word to the people
13:29You know, you cannot expect them to, you know
13:33And that's how you create critical mass, right?
13:35That's how you create a self-aware, critical audience
13:39Is that if you welcome them as willing, consensual partners
13:44And collaborators in your process of making something
13:47Then you are expanding on the dialogue and the limitations of what art can do
13:54Because you're not assuming them anymore
13:57So it is important to take it out of the white cube and put it on the mud walls of Shantiniketan
14:03And to use this infrastructure
14:05Because infrastructure is not just walls and bricks and mortar
14:08Infrastructure is people, people's minds, people's eyes, people's desires
14:13People's hunger, people's thirst, people's pain, you know, is also infrastructure
14:19And to acknowledge that is to validate that
14:25And that's what the potential of something like this, like the Bengal Biennale has
14:30Is to be inclusive and to be democratic
14:37And to be available and accessible, you know
14:42If art is indeed about creating, giving agency and access
14:46What good is it if it's only experienced in a white cube
14:49And an institution somewhere far away in the West
14:53So that's why I think it's very important to stay resilient
15:00And to keep on and to be generous
15:09Not my words, but the words of Devdutt Patnaik
15:16Who spoke so eloquently, talked about generosity and resilience
15:21And I think that's what this Biennale to me right now signifies
15:27Is a certain level of generosity
15:31And its resilience will be noted as it takes its ideas into the next Bengal Biennale
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