Dead Bodies of The Youth
Vandana
2009
Performance
10 Minutes
Rachana Sansad AFAC, Mumbai
©Vandana The Artist
Courtesy Vandana The Artist
DESCRIPTION
Dead Bodies of The Youth is a satire on child marriage — a practice still prevalent in parts of India in the twenty-first century. The bride is personified as marriage itself; the roses as the immature youth whose lives it destroys. In this live performance, the chopped roses from the performance video Dead Bodies of the Youth become corpses on a funeral pyre — the private act of destruction carried into public ritual, and the metaphor made communal.
I, with three other people, lift the funeral pyre, having thousands of corpses (chopped roses) on it, in a ritualistic manner and take it from the premises to the gallery where my performance video is on display. The audience joins the procession with complete silence. We keep the pyre down on the floor in front of the video projection. We bow with respect and pay tribute to the dead bodies.
Vandana 