Transitory Body
Performed at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Museum (K21 ) , Dusseldorf
2023
On May 25, artist Arpita Akhanda presents, “The Transitory Body,” a performance and, “The Memory Collector,” a lecture as part of our monthly public program K21 Encounters. Premiering in Düsseldorf, she unveils her practice at the interface between shared memory and performative experience. Akhanda works across various media, including paper weavings, photography, performance, installations, drawings, and video. With her paper works, she weaves the warp of memories with the weft of present situations to create a fabric that questions identity and existence and, thus, maps the connections between past and present. The artist explores intergenerational memories drawing on the migration and displacement experiences of her ancestors during the partition of India in 1947. Digging into archival photographic collections and family archives, Akhanda investigates the aftermath of a collective history interwoven by colonialism and migration. The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen acquired her large-format paper weaving, “আমি উদ্বাস্তু নই (I am not a refugee) II” (2022), this year.
In Transitory Body, Akhanda adopts the action of stamping dates (relevant to both her family and the country) on her body, resonating it with the action of stamping as an official procedure connected with the body in transit. As the performance unfolds the performer's body becomes a collection of memories. The artist equates herself with a memory collector inviting viewers to share their memories of loss involved in any kind of partition- separation- division- dissection-detachment with her by offering her body as a site to collect the lost narratives.
Transitory Body performed for You cannot step into the same river twice.
2023
Performance by Arpita Akhanda, Cristina Flores Pescorán, and Rehema Chachage, part of Murmuring Matter: On the Cosmopolitics of Materials, Museum Night Maastricht, Jan Van Eyck Academie.
Arpita Akhanda, Cristina Flores Pescorán, and Rehema Chachage come together in their first ever collaboration. They devise three interrelated performances that explore the multifaceted nature of time and investigate its historical, individual, and communal manifestations. Through real and imagined experiences, they present various economies of time, prompting us to consider how individual memories and shared experiences shape our sense of place and belonging. With its diverse interpretations and applications, time here serves as a fertile ground for artistic exploration and reflection tapping into intergenerational and ancestral knowledges, and embodied experiences.
Transitory Body
2022
performed at Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, Rome, Italy.
Transitory Body
2022
performed at RIVERS AND ROAD: meandering stories of India, curated by Valeria Contarino, Pranitha Joseph, and Zhu Yaning, AAIE Center for Contemporary Art, Rome, Italy.
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