The body as a medium...
My life is a constant bursting of expression, of feeling, and sometimes even overwhelm, and I wish to share my learnings and experiences in as many ways as possible. Through the medium of the body, and through interaction and collaboration with others, I am able to say things that would otherwise have been hard to speak of. And I invite you to come and experience my art, my stories, my soul - and to listen to the spoken, and especially, the unspoken.
'Arushi as a Drum'
This work is a combination of video art, sound and music, as well as performance art. Through the use of layers created in more physical, tangible ways than solely a digital process, in this work I act as a drum, with my body responding to the vibrations and sounds of a musical instrument. To me, this work is as playful as it is deep and meaningful, as one core feature of my art practice is to mix emotions, feelings, and life experiences that are sometimes lighthearted, and sometimes quite the contrary, and create with them in a playful, even childish way. On the one hand, this work can be seen as a 'happy dance', where I respond to the music with abandon. On the other hand, this can represent the act of 'taking a beating' - where like a drum, one receives the slashings of a drumstick, is hurt and perhaps pained by it, only to learn to dance and even smile through it all, as though it were an act of acceptance, healing, and overcoming. Oh, the joy and pain of being a drum!
'Layers of Love'
In this interactive storytelling experience held at ArtBuzz Studios, New Delhi, in 2023, I shared some deeply personal stories from my life, while also inviting the audience to join me in narrating them. Each story was about how a recent, wonderful experience reminded me of a difficult experience from the past, and in the process, adding a layer of love, of beauty, of acceptance, over the earlier memory.
'Things I Couldn't Say'
For all the iterations of this performance, held at National Art School, Sydney, Australia, in 2021, I would become a part of the audience and look on, as four artists, dressed in black, emerged into the galleries and studios, reciting poetry that I have written, without any indication about what the performance was about, who had written it, or that there was going to be a performance at all.
'The Feeling of a Space'
For this performance artwork, I stood inside what once used to be a prison cell, at the National Art School, Sydney, Australia, and narrated stories of contributors describing a time in their lives when they had felt trapped inside a box. None of the words were my own, but I was able to sew a new narrative by putting together portions or lines from all the stories that had been sent in to me.
'Voice'
This work is a recorded performance. Something that existed live not for a large audience like some of my other performance works, but was captured on video, and would be shared in this form.
'Chookie'
During the pandemic, I lived on a cottage in a farm in Gunnedah, NSW, Australia, for six months. I received a grant from Arts North West to express my experience of living on a farm through an artistic project. I was then invited by the Gunnedah Bicentennial Gallery to hold a solo exhibition with the work I had created with this grant. 'Chookie' is a song I wrote on the farm, based on the 'chooks' (hens) that I used to feed, take care of and collect eggs from each morning, as the designated 'Chook-lady'.