KATHMANDU, March 26: A woman in black clothes is moving her body in such a way that it seemed she is in great pain. In the tune of a subtle music, she is lying on the ground and slowly moving her hands and legs. Her movement and her facial expressions are executed as if she is struggling with her life -- a life full of pain and sorrow, yet moving on ahead.
This was a performance art by artist Keepa Maskey on March 20 at Itumbhal, Kathmandu. After her act she said, “I tend to release whatever I am feeling inside my body. Today’s performance was about releasing my inner pain and performance act has been my medium of doing so.”
Maskey and 19 other Nepali artists along with 15 international artists are participating in Expression-Expedition, organized by Luna Poets. And on the same day, Claudia Roselli from Italy, Jinal Patel and Tanya Kundu from India, Laila Putri Wartawarti from Indonesia, Sumana Akter from Bangladesh along with Nepali artists Anil Subba, Harendra Kushwaha, Manish Lal Shrestha, Sundar Lama, Saurganga Darshandhari, Prithivi Shrestha, among others performed on the open space of the chowk (square) and its surrounding area.
My feelings
Sharing his thoughts on the meaning of performance art, Kaur Chimuk from India, one of the curators, said that it means to create a multi-level exchange between people, their surroundings, memories, and histories based on sensorial perceptions, experientiality, and expression. It also means to think of the practice of every day in a tactical way, where we experience time and think of duration and space in a non-linear fashion in their collisions and surprises, Chimuk said. “Performance art is about being conscientious and be aware about oneself and practice, what we are trying to portray through our body.”
According to artist and art writer Saroj Bajracharya, “Performance art was initially established through action painting where colors, brush and canvases were used in a nontraditional way, having lots of action. And the canvases are also huge in size. Artists found harmony in the movement and they introduced poem and acts establishing performance art. And there are multiple dimensions of performance art where an artist can create an art work using all five senses.”
After Maskey’s performance, inside the main Bahal, artists Roselli, Patel, Kundu, Putri Wartawarti and Subba collaboratively gave a performance signifying five elements--water, earth, air, fire, and space. The combination of artistic ambiance, their performance and music gave a pleasant feeling for the viewers.
Meanwhile for artist Patel, the project Expression-Expedition is about artists coming together and expressing themselves where there is not any kind of restriction. Here, artists can carry on with expressing their feelings on and on till the end of the project, she said, adding: “Expression-Expedition (EE) is all about collaboration and bringing it to dialogue that is also a kind of intersection of thoughts and practices.”
Talking about the aim of the project, another curator of the project Ritesh Maharajan explained: “From the curatorial side, we are trying to focus on two specific areas: proposing a collective space where fluid art and mixed media practice can exchange the view, and making it an inclusive meet for practitioners."
The participants come from Bangladesh, India, Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Italy, Japan, USA and various parts of Nepal.The project is running from March 18 to March 28. The last three days of the performances will be staged in eastern Nepali town of Dhankuta.
