BUBBLE TROUBLE

AArtist Amol Patil plans to bring in a bit of Mumbai’s chawls to the upcoming India Art Fair, staking claim to the city he grew up in and on behalf of residents who have always been looked down upon and are now being pushed out.

As part of a series of performance art pieces by various artists around the theme of language, Patil will lead a group of sweepers and others engaged in what are called “lower jobs”, who will blow soap bubbles into the air. Floating over the venue, the bubbles will confront the notion of untouchability as they pop against people attending the show, Patil says. For another performance, loudspeakers will play a recording of ‘TAKE/ THE/ CITY’ by Niccolò Moscatelli, which questions the politics, survival, daily routine, lifestyle and hierarchy of Mumbai, as Patil walks through the exhibition grounds dramatising the sounds of the city’s chawls with interpretive movements.

“I’m comparing it to my grandfather’s and father’s theatre scripts, which also question the city, through plays about mill workers, sweepers and immigrants,” Patil says. “The body movements are about the everyday gestures where I am personifying dead objects from my father’s plays—like the pendulum clock, street lamp, fan movements which become political gestures.” In one such instance, he holds his hand aloft for nearly 45 minutes, creating three different gestures, including the Nazi salute, as his arm slowly lowers from fatigue. —Chinki Sinha