My Body Becomes You

My Body Becomes You
Is a new beginning, a part of my larger exploration 'Kaś' (to shine)
Here, ‘You’ has a vast meaning like, You, are a field, a space, a realm, a space where My body exists, My body comes into being, a
sense of aliveness.
You are a city. You are a river.
You are everything I imagine/experience, air, people, feelings, anticipations.
Sometimes You also exist inside Me, as something beyond physical, a state beyond the earthly body.
After arriving here, I have felt my internal body slowly changing, transforming through the impressions of my experiences in this
city. My costume here is a bird, I used a mask that depicts the face of a bird, which I found in Paris, it is like flying from one city to
another city, this is the furthest I have ever travelled, with my work, in terms of distance. This bird for me symbolizes my internal
body, my inner world, it always wants to take flight, towards the light.
I brought some materials for my costume from India, and the first weeks of my stay in Paris, I started to roam the streets, till late
into the night, I walked in the streets of the outskirts, and found many materials that inspired me and allowed me to imagine the
being that is the transformation of my inner self. When I walk the streets the movement of the people and animals the dogs that
accompany the people, the sound of the street, the trees the movement of the rivers, inspired me more and more and my internal
body’s movement was slowly changing, the colour of the dresses of people the colour of the space, the colour of the light, the
changing colours of the leaves as we enter autumn, the markets, make up the ever changing hues of my inner body and in this
way, the movement for my performances, were organically becoming. I started to draw on the surfaces of paper, leather and white
cloth, all drawing comes very spontaneously, they reveal memories of the two cities which I am presently deeply influenced by.
This costume, when worn out in public, it sometimes invokes strange reactions from people, perhaps they feel uncomfortable, this
fearsome, strange form, this is the fear and the darkness that is a part of my inner landscape that I accept, and that I want to share
with others, this is the first time I have stepped on a land other than mine. The problem of language and the fear of being
misunderstood, made me feel fear and timidity and this fear is also mine, is another aspect of myself, that needs to be nurtured
and creatively expressed out in the streets.
Day by day when I transform Myself to You the fear that I once experienced slowly dissolves.
After a few days of being in Paris, I soon realized that Cite des Arts is a small world without borders where people of different
countries thrive in their art practice bringing stories, languages and dreams from different corners, these influences and expands
my inner world greatly. For this project I invited my fellow resident of Cite des Arts. The Egyptian photographer Ali Zaray
documented the process of my project on film and photography. For the soundtrack of my performance, Sri Lankan composer
Hania Luthufi worked with musicians Dominic Rothlisberger, (Cello, Nyckleharpa) Peppe Formisano (Cretan lyra) and Rohit Gupta
(mixing mastering) I am thankful for the sense of community of this very special place and for the wonderful support and
contribution of my fellow artists.
I feel collecting memories and shaping new hybrid bodies helps me to interact with the spaces I walk through is a strong part of my
art practice. In this period, my bodies are starting to change but I don’t know what form it will take yet, it is a process of becoming,
and with time these forms will unfold and reveal themselves them to me and I await to meet them with great anticipation.