A box to Live:
The venue is a
boxlike room but it’s actually a box for him that he understands as a box for
sleeping. He hardly ever uses the word “House”, but he feels “Room” is a more
suitable word when he mentions to the box. What keeps him from calling his
living space as the “House”?
Relationship with
space:
“According to
him, he doesn’t have an “emotional attachment” with this house unlike I did
when I rent a flat in Delhi. I think if we have an organic relationship with
spaces comes from more mutual and comprehensive elements rather than one-sided
assumption by human beings.” – said Tomo Seto.
Venue: Anupam Saikia’s
living room, at Kolkata.
Date: 28th
May 2018.
This is the second edition of the project called “Someone’s House”, conceptualized by Tomo
Seto. It aims to understand the nature of the space where someone lives and see
more diversity and the possibility of performance art or any active medium. The second edition initiated and Curated by Anupam Saikia at his living house in
Kolkata where contained live performance, Video, Poetry, Drawings, etc on the
theme “A box to live”.
Participating
Artists:
Anupam Saikia.
Kaur Chimuk.
Prabhakar
Pachpute.
Pandemonium Art
Collective Collaborative
Samudra Kajal
Saikia
Santhosh Kumar
Sakhinala.
Tapati Chowdhuri.
Tanaya Kundu.
Tanzina Hossen
Arshi.
Earthwork of Hadsati: Prabhakar Pachpute.
This video work is projected on the wall for 20 minutes.
This video work is projected on the wall for 20 minutes.
An Inherent Crack:
Santhosh Kumar Sakhinala
Waiting, waiting! Silence!
He boiled water to make tea in the kitchen. He said, “if anyone wants sugar,
there is sugar.” When he broke the silence, others started talking about the
tea, about the pleasure of having tea together. Suddenly he broke his cup intentionally
to provoke the pleasure.
Photograph: Indranil Baghchi || Drawing By Shaon Basu
I swim, Unconcious: Anupam Saikia.
Walk to the toilet, undressing his cloth and he became horizontal on the
toilet. In the audible range, there was a poetry in Assamese by Nilomoni Phukan “And
Exactly Then lay I Unconscious” ( আৰু তেতিয়াই মই অজ্ঞান হৈ পৰিছিলো ) and he
was swimming like in action inside the toilet. He blocked his legs into the
bucket in addition to shaking the water. What motivated him to address this
poetry with the swim being in a toilet?
Photograph: Indranil Baghchi || Drawing By Shaon Basu
Transition: Pandemonium Art Collective Collaborative
A clumsy video on the ceiling, a couple came with two eggs in addition to placed themselves middle of the box in and feeding each other. Throwing the eggs like a ball, playing like children but conscious embodied with concentrate perhaps. But finally broke on the floor. Is it mistaken or it’s intentionally done?
Performer: Abhijit Ray, Smritiparna Sengupta
A clumsy video on the ceiling, a couple came with two eggs in addition to placed themselves middle of the box in and feeding each other. Throwing the eggs like a ball, playing like children but conscious embodied with concentrate perhaps. But finally broke on the floor. Is it mistaken or it’s intentionally done?
Performer: Abhijit Ray, Smritiparna Sengupta
Photograph: Indranil Baghchi
When did you cry last
time, alone? : Samudra Kajal Saikia.
The yellow paper was hidden in the living box. There is
something written inside where people are curious to know where it was. Some of
them excited because they got easily, some of very tense because they did not
get easier. There was written the question “When did you cry last time, alone?”
Where is the performer? Is he performing something in somewhere? All are trying
to connect through the question. Some replies through the massages and some may
not.
Samudra wrote: “I forgot when. When I cried last.
How long it lasted. When was I alone? I forgot I cried. My house is cozy,
clumsy with objects. They never leave me alone. I cannot cry alone. I want to
be alone. I want to cry. A cry, just like a cry. Not necessarily for grief or
sorrow. Not necessarily for any repent or for any pain. Just a cry. A cry like
a cry. Just like a greedy kid who doesn't want to share his candy with others,
I wanted a cry for my own. All mine, all alone...”
Photograph: Indranil Baghchi || Drawing By Shaon Basu
Messy Trunk of Memorabilia : Tanzina Hossen Arshi.
She entered the bathroom and closed the door. We were hearing
sounds of having a bath (?) also some noise, slap, hitting on the body in the audible
range. Is she accepting us to hear the sound from distance? Or is she trying to
imagine the visual of a live body performing inside our mind? It is obvious
that audience imagination goes through many personal narratives and experiences.
Photograph: Indranil Baghchi || Drawing By Shaon Basu
Like it or not, Box carries your emotion:
Tapati Chowdhury
Sitting, Organizing the bed and drinking water, that’s how Tapati started the performance. She tried to erase something which appears on the wall, that’s an impression on the human body. By erasing the impression of the body, is she tried to rub out the memory, or is she caring for some narratives from the box? Or has she juxtaposed her emotion on the wall with the mark?
Sitting, Organizing the bed and drinking water, that’s how Tapati started the performance. She tried to erase something which appears on the wall, that’s an impression on the human body. By erasing the impression of the body, is she tried to rub out the memory, or is she caring for some narratives from the box? Or has she juxtaposed her emotion on the wall with the mark?
Photograph: Indranil Baghchi || Drawing By Abhijit
Nimbu Pani : Tanaya Kundu
She places herself inside the box with her intimate objects likes brushes, pencils, color, sketchbook, private notes contain her narratives. She started chewing a lemon, sitting silently, tension visible in her face while continuously chewing and writing her own experience about the box. She was sharing some narratives, images, etc. with the audiences. What motivated her to indulge with the sourness of the lemon despite the swelling it caused during the performance itself and days after?
She places herself inside the box with her intimate objects likes brushes, pencils, color, sketchbook, private notes contain her narratives. She started chewing a lemon, sitting silently, tension visible in her face while continuously chewing and writing her own experience about the box. She was sharing some narratives, images, etc. with the audiences. What motivated her to indulge with the sourness of the lemon despite the swelling it caused during the performance itself and days after?
Photograph: Indranil Baghchi || Drawing By Shaon Basu
Territory 2: Kaur Chi Muk.
He created a contour of the box and it was dark. The third of May by Goya was appearing in projection, with tiny small objects create various action embodied playing along with the shadow. We observed, he was hitting his drawing on the wall or was he tried to hit the painting? There was slowly escalating noise in the box with improvised sounds by Bula da and Abhijit, with his conscious movement. He spoke about the performance / is it necessary to speak about?
He created a contour of the box and it was dark. The third of May by Goya was appearing in projection, with tiny small objects create various action embodied playing along with the shadow. We observed, he was hitting his drawing on the wall or was he tried to hit the painting? There was slowly escalating noise in the box with improvised sounds by Bula da and Abhijit, with his conscious movement. He spoke about the performance / is it necessary to speak about?
Photograph: Indranil Baghchi || Drawing By Shaon Basu
About “Someone’s
House”:
Conceptualized by
Tomo Seto.
·
Someone’s personal narrative and Someone’s Performance:
The venue is my
flat where I moved in last July. Even though I have been living here less than
one year, it is almost packed with the things and narratives I have been
collecting in India. The room gradually become personal and significant from a neutral
and inorganic space as I stayed longer.
How will concept
and action grow with someone’s personal narrative (Tomo Seto’s narratives in
this case) in both a visible and invisible way? Also, how will her own
narrative get influenced by other’s performance?
·
Closed, box-like space:
It is the room
which was originally for servants and renovated for rent. It is small and
closed. I sometimes feel I live in a box. I assume it would create a unique and
intensive atmosphere as a venue and would be interesting to perform.
·
Ultra-personal event:
Despite the ideas
I have written above, it is basically derived from my personal wish to see more
performance of whom I found interesting here, not from any artistic and social
significance. I am trying to make such a personal wish happen in such a personal
space.
·
Socializing the ultra-personal thing:
But I still would
like to make this event open to society (Art society?). Because the room
can accommodate up to 15 people, the number of audiences is limited (5 Artists
and 10 audiences).
Then
documentation would be important to socialize this ultra-personal event. I
would like to explore the way of documentation which does not rely on only
photographs and video to seek the way to convey what actually happens in a three-dimensional way which includes photographs, video, writings, drawings etc.
-
Tomo
This First Edition has successfully happened in Tomo Seto’s Flat, New
Delhi on 29th April 2018.
