open invitation | Photo credit: Manush John
Nature has a way of making man feel like a speck of dust. Wide open skies, majestic mountains, desert sand dunes, high waves and flashes of lightning.
The rocky expanse that stretches between Ramnagar and Hampi can also leave one with that subtle sense of nothingness-of-nothingness. A year of artistic and scientific research delving into the relationship between humans and ecology resulted in the creation of Open Invitation, three experiential works of art.
“Those rocks are geologically some of the oldest parts of the Earth – they’re two and a half billion years old,” says Shabari Rao, one of the four artists involved in the project. “This is way before the dinosaurs, the Himalayas or the Indian peninsula separated from Africa! We based our project in that scenario.
open invitation | Photo credit: Manush John
Talking about the project she says, “We found that the expansion of space and time diminishes the human presence which is otherwise very impressive. In the work we create, the human presence is quite subtle and we have tried to re-balance the existence of the landscape and the creatures that live there. The shrinking of human presence was the objective.
Open Invitation is a work in three parts – a film, an improvised performance and a sound album. Shabri says the team tried to keep the entire project ‘contemplative, contemplative and as non-verbal as possible so that people can feel the expansion of time and space.’
open invitation | Photo credit: Manush John
Shabari and Manush John, an artist and filmmaker, produced a non-narrative film titled open invitation which explores the relationship of the human form to landscape. Singers Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy and Shabari conceptualized ‘Singing Body’, an improvised performance score that ’emerges from a place of conscious listening’. The final volume of this work is a sound album by Bindhumalini and Navya Sah, a multidisciplinary artist who works with sound, film, movement and writing. The album was intended to ‘capture the sonic textures of the landscape through eco-acoustic experiments’.
Shabri says the idea for the project came to her during the pandemic when she used to go for long walks along those rocks. “There is something quite magical and wonderful about that place. I felt a sense of reassurance – all the troubles and craziness of the world seemed to subside.
open invitation | Photo credit: Manush John
The project began with Shabri and Manush capturing these emotions in a series of photographs and an experiential film before evolving into a three-part work of art. Supported by Sonic Matter, Switzerland and Swissex, India, Open Invitation will travel to Vienna and Zurich after their performance in Bengaluru.
A process installation tracing the research journey of this project will be displayed at 1 Shantiroad from November 18 to 20, with a talk by Thejaswi Sivananda on November 18 at 6 pm, discussing deep time ideas. The singing body performance will be presented in Zero on 19th and 20th November from 9 am to 10.30 am.
open invitation | Photo credit: Manush John
open invitation | Photo credit: Manush John