Day Performance, streets of London, England
In The Nautch, I drew from my personal experience of London and specifically of the the art industry in the city, and a piece of history that I came across while researching the British archives - an Exhibition at The Liberty in 1885, in which an entire village was brought to London to be put on display to bring in more British Shoppers - including a troupe of Nautch dancers. Through performance, I connected the past to present simply by engaging with the physical and bodily experience of losing voice consciousness, that Gayatri Spivak refers to in her essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak’. Inspired by Rimbaud Series by David Wojnarowicz, I photographed myself in different locations dressed as a Nautch as a way of reenacting the experience of ‘othering’ and protesting it.
Corresponding Essay and script by the Artist
Last year, when I was in London completing my master’s in art, I was told by my peers and teachers that I must go to art galleries to look at art and mingle with people, be inspired, and become a part of the art community – that was the best thing I could do to jumpstart my career. So, over the course of the year, I went to all the openings I could possibly go to and saw art at most national galleries and museums.
However, by the end of it, instead of feeling inspired I was left feeling disenchanted, discouraged, and alone. I couldn’t put my finger on the Why, but it became clear to me and my body that openings in Mayfair were only meant for a certain kind of people, belonging to a certain class. I always felt the atmosphere intimidating, for I would seldom see people of color around, even if the artist being shown was of color. It made sense, since the people who could afford to buy the art or talk about the art (by way of access to good education, particularly in the arts) were people who came from privilege- and so white. It became hard to hold a conversation with someone at one of these events without being aware of my accent, South Asian-ness, and otherness – which ironically seemed to be the only thing that made me interesting as an artist or not interesting at all – as I wasn’t trained in miniature. Swinging between too brown or not brown enough, at times I would doubt myself and think I’m being overly critical or imagining things, that the insecurities arising from the post-colonial baggage I’m carrying are somehow my responsibility. But then my body was saying something else – it was saying “this doesn’t feel right”
And the body is always right, since it responds from the most authentic place.
I felt the same when simply looking at art. Everywhere I went, somehow art by people of color was always shown in the context of their identity. The discourse, when it comes to artists of color, tends to contextualize their practice in relation to their race, ethnicity or background, without looking at what they’re trying to do within the work and then bringing them into the canon - which has the effect of placing them outside of it. So, it was always easy to see a show with all black artists or go to a gallery that especially shows South Asian artists, but I could hardly find any shows that exhibited these artists within the canon, along with everyone else, stripped off of this otherness. It gave the impression that it is the only thing that defines them. Maybe I missed some of the shows that did try to change this, but by and large, they were in the minority because this was my experience over a span of a year. Much of this made sense when I realized that my professors knew little about South Asian artists, and the only time I came across them in academic writing was when I searched for them myself – despite the fact that the very same college had produced internationally renowned South Asian artists such as Naiza Khan. I especially felt the pain of this when I walked across the halls in the National Portrait Gallery. I realized that so much of my history is tied to the people that are hanging on those walls, as a way of celebrating people who are in many ways responsible for this weight that I am feeling, and yet it was hard to find portraits of people from South Asia that I could relate to or look up to, as if our side of history, which is also their history, never existed - except for when one wants to see the Kohi-noor at The Tower of London or find an “exclusive” exhibition on “glorious Mughal history”.
When I began to really think about this, I realized that I had had the same bodily experience in other public spaces across London – like in the underground or outside regent street - and it reminded me of The Rimbaud Series by David Wojnarowicz. In the Rimbaud Series, David took photographs of himself and his friends who identified as queer, wearing the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s mask, in different locations across Manhattan, places that had triggered feelings of alienation. By taking on Rimbaud’s face, who lived in the 18th century, David was essentially taking on his identity and highlighting the parallels in their lives: the violence suffered in their youths, the feeling of being denied freedom, the desire to live far away from the bourgeois environment and the fact of their homosexuality. He was juxtaposing the historical time of the symbolist poet with his present. The work gives the impression of being lonely, lost, and displaced; experiences that Wojnarowicz aimed to highlight in the context of what was happening to the LGBT community at the time.
The performative aspect of the work was very appealing to me. The way in which he put on the mask and went to these places to get photographed, in front of an audience, was a dramatic staging of the experience of how queer men had to put on a façade or act to fit into these spaces. In a way he was reenacting the lived experience of being marginalized and displaced as a queer person. The physical act of putting on the mask immediately separated him from those around him. It allowed engagement with an audience in these spaces without directly speaking to them, as the onlookers watched when he wore the mask and got photographed. While this performative reenactment of lived experience was an attempt at highlighting the emotional and physical aspects of that experience, it was also an attempt to subvert and protest that experience.
Inspired by this series I decided to do my own performance, using the same framework but applying it differently to reflect the core ideas underpinning my work on the construction of South Asian female subjectivity. When I started my research to put together this performance, I began to look at some of these spaces, including The Liberty, in a deeper way and found new insights that shed light on darker truths, which then inspired the work itself. The Liberty is one of the most expensive and exclusive department stores in London, primarily dealing in fabrics and designer wear, and has been around for over 200 years. In 1885, an exhibition was held at the Liberty in which 60 villagers from India, including a number of Nautch dancers, were brought to London and put on display, as if to transport an entire village intact, in order to bring in more British customers to shop. Coming across this news article in the archives and then visiting the Liberty as it stands today ignited the same feeling of discomfort that took over me when I had to present myself at Mayfair galleries and other spaces in and around London.
It was then easy to imagine myself standing in front of The Liberty, in the same kind of clothes that the Nautch wore, as a sort of mask that I could identify with, and then stage a dramatic reenactment of the Nautch on display all those years ago. Like David in the Rimbaud Series – and with the help of my dear friend Amelia Qasir, I photographed myself in all the places I felt alienated in some way or the other, wearing my Angrakha, Churri Dar pajama, Khussa’s and jewelry – the things that make me “traditional”, “exotic”, “beautiful”, “colorful”, of color, other, and the things that immediately separated me from the audience. Interestingly, the very hypothesis I was testing was proven true when we managed to catch turned heads and questionable looks in the camera. Just to test this further I also performed in Whitechapel – a place that often transports me to liberty market in my hometown Lahore. Here no one looked or cared, and I easily blended in with the crowd. What we weren’t able to capture sadly, were the cops who started yelling at me for taking photographs on the footpath in front of the Ritz – and wouldn’t stop yelling till Amelia stepped in - in her everyday wear, or the admin lady from the Royal Academy of the Arts who asked us not to do a “photoshoot” and leave, and the guy who turned around and told me I looked beautiful in my “saari”!