Nikhil Chopra discovered the essence of his performance, 'Land Becoming Water'. It is a space of transformation—where boundaries blur, landscapes flow, and the solidity of the ground fails. This was Chopra’s first encounter with Santiniketan in September, in the wake of a tropical hurricane. Flooded paddy fields and the swollen Kopai River transformed the land into a surreal water body with trees jutted out, echoing the precarious state of our environment. This visual and emotional impact became the seed for his performance, which addresses the urgent realities of climate change. Rising sea levels and the potential submersion of the Indo-Gangetic Delta loom large, turning this reflective work into a call for attention.
His 'When Land Becomes Water' is a 10-hour live performance that blurs the boundaries between art and ecology, inspired by a profoundly altered landscape in Santiniketan. The performance unfolds at Gabaa’s artist-run residency space, where dressed in an austere white costume designed by Alex Alphonse, Chopra will transform the physical act of drawing into a meditation on fragility and change using burnt wood and the black dust it produces.
Chopra’s performance is an act of endurance, a communion between artist and audience, and a space for collective contemplation. Rooted in the legacy of Tagore’s Santiniketan—a site synonymous with intellectual and artistic excellence—'When Land Becomes Water' integrates tradition with urgent contemporary concerns, for a poignant exploration of climate, identity, and creation, challenging us to reckon with the impermanence of the world we inhabit.
Visuals: Animikh and Sandipan
#NikhilChopra #Photography #Sculpture #Drawing #BengalBiennale #WestBengal #Shantiniketan #Art #Culture #Bengali #Heritage
His 'When Land Becomes Water' is a 10-hour live performance that blurs the boundaries between art and ecology, inspired by a profoundly altered landscape in Santiniketan. The performance unfolds at Gabaa’s artist-run residency space, where dressed in an austere white costume designed by Alex Alphonse, Chopra will transform the physical act of drawing into a meditation on fragility and change using burnt wood and the black dust it produces.
Chopra’s performance is an act of endurance, a communion between artist and audience, and a space for collective contemplation. Rooted in the legacy of Tagore’s Santiniketan—a site synonymous with intellectual and artistic excellence—'When Land Becomes Water' integrates tradition with urgent contemporary concerns, for a poignant exploration of climate, identity, and creation, challenging us to reckon with the impermanence of the world we inhabit.
Visuals: Animikh and Sandipan
#NikhilChopra #Photography #Sculpture #Drawing #BengalBiennale #WestBengal #Shantiniketan #Art #Culture #Bengali #Heritage
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LifestyleTranscript
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