Performing art that sets us free

The Nepali art scene is seeing a surge of interest in performance art. However, it is not a novelty because of its origins in the blend of painting, theatre, and poetry.

Interdisciplinary artists like Jivan Acharya, Ashmina Ranjit, Salil Subedi, and Mahima Singh have used blended art forms to draw attention to socio-political issues such as state violence, exploitation of natural resources, and gender inequality.

In 2014, Amrit Karki, a fine arts student at Kathmandu University, put together a 13-minute showpiece Fire and Ice at the Taragaon Museum in which he cut off locks of his hair and burnt them on a singing bowl in a visceral depiction of personal attachment and abandonment.

“At the time, I was researching and exploring different trends in contemporary art. I was deeply struck by Francis Alÿs and his ‘When Faith Moves Mountains’ and Marina Abramović and her ‘Rhythm Zero’. I realised that art could move beyond the confines of a painting,” explains Karki.

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Over the years, Pokhara native Karki has continued to explore this idea further. In his fifth performance art titled Breathing Through the Stillness in 2022, Karki stood still for more than four hours as masons constructed a brick wall around his body. 

The audience stood and watched as the bricklayers mixed cement, measured the alignments of the bricks, and stacked the bricks. In the end, the newly-constructed brick wall fell behind Karki as he walked out.

Karki’s latest work ‘What You Have Given Me, I Set Free Forever’ at the Nepal Art Council last week was a part of the Rubin Museum’s exhibition ‘Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now’, and Abramović was one of the co-curators.

Abramović, a Serbian conceptual and performance artist, is famous for probing the relationship between performer and audience along with experimentation of endurance art. Karki’s new work, unsurprisingly, has the audience actively participating in the making of art.

The room was warm and stuffy, there was no ventilation in the wide, white-walled room. In the middle was a skeletal dome-like structure made of copper arcs that converged to form a space for an upside down receptacle. 

A giant copper water storage drum nearby contained dyed water maintained at room temperature. It was colourless the first day, yellow the second, green the third, blue the fourth and then finally red.

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From 11AM to 6PM every day for the duration of the performance, Karki wore a white shirt and pants and sat on a raised copper pedestal and a white cushion just below the receptacle which had a hole on its tip. 

The audience could take a jug of water from the drum and fill the receptacle so that a steady stream of dyed water poured on Karki’s head, cascading down his body, and staining his white shirt and pants.

The deliberate choice of the dye colours mimicked the pattern of prayer flags which in turn symbolises the five elements: air, space, fire, water, and earth. The artist's statement that how “viewers will witness the gradual accumulation of everything the artist has accepted from them and set free forever” suggests the influence of the Buddhist philosophy of letting go of earthly burdens and belongings.

“Having the chance to discuss my performance art with her was a grateful experience. Even a small comment from her helped illuminate the impact of my performance art,” says Karki of Abramović who has been a constant inspiration for the artist.

Karki often embraced himself. His right arm caresses his left shoulder, rubbing it, and after six hours of sitting still under the stream of water, his body looks stiff and tense. 

His chest area and the cushion on which he sat was stained dark green. His long hair had been tied into a bun which the stream of water hit. If no one filled the receptacle, Karki’s shirt would remain unstained. 

While the performance does nudge viewers to pour the water on the receptacle as a “visual reminder of the things that daily pollute and burden the mind”, the act of doing so also raises a moral question: how fair is it for someone to hand over one’s burdens onto others?

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The interval between visitors felt empty, everyone in the room waited with bated breath as Karki stared ahead, his eyes vacant, but they were also periods of respite. 

Sitting still for seven hours a day while a stream of water is poured on top of your head must test the limits of human endurance. At one point, Karki raised his right foot and rested it gently on top of his left foot. The soles of his feet were also lightly stained green.

“The extent and impact of audience participation depends upon the idea and concept of the creators but it is when audiences are allowed to participate that the performance art becomes stronger,” says Karki. “On the last day, the receptacle was almost always filled through the day. The more people felt connected with my performance, the more they participated.”