Propositions- on Text and Space II

Artist(s):
• Zuleikha Chaudhuri

Propositions: On Text and Space II, an exhibition of light installations and video by Zuleikha Chaudhari, is based on texts from Roland Schimmelpfennig's play 'Before/Afterwards'. Schimmelpfennig's fragmented stories suggest how personal and internal histories and experiences reflect a changing world that is constant invention, constant failure, constant effort; constant flux. The text reflects people and their engagement with space. Creating a relationship between the private unconscious emotional life of human beings and physical landscapes. The installation maps these spaces that are suspended between the real and the imagined. It eliminates the presence of the performer in performance and investigates the nature of narrative in text, space and light. Zuleikha Chaudhari's work as a theatre director is essentially an investigation into the nature of performance. It explores how images are constructed and experienced: what is the relationship between the text and performer, the dynamics between performer and space, how narratives are created and understood, and finally, the role of the spectator in the performative experience. At the same time, it is also an exploration of space and the part space plays in the construction and experience of narratives - whether it is the space of the human body or the space of the place within which the performance takes place. She explores and develops a series of questions to do with the interruption of the narrative structure, the fragmentation of the mimetic relationship between text and movement, the relationship between the body and space, the texture of the performative space itself, the quality of the performative body and the nature of viewing experience. Her light installations have, so far, been created as environments in which it is possible to view the performer from multiple perspectives - as a sculptural element in space and/or as a site for emotive expression, with the dynamics between the performer and spectator constantly changing, depending on the varying spatial relationships.