Bengal Biennale 2024 | Nikhil Chopra's art is rooted in the legacy of Tagore's Shantiniketan.

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

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