Performance artist Shri Vishnuprasad’s ‘Footnots’ discovered climate change and its impact on the coastal areas of Kochi

Sri Vishnuprasad Durbar Hall sits on top of a column in the central gallery space, while his audience gather around them in a semicircle. He is ready to introduce ‘footnots’, a demonstration based on tidal floods in Kochi. There are no props in sight, in addition to the view of an estimated a graph on the wall behind it, and there is no pomp.

How is a performance artist going to deal with a complex environmental issue in a gallery setting? As soon as Vishnuprasad starts his statement, the questions begin to break. He opens the piece by remembering an recurring nightmare – floating about household items everyday. Slowly broach the issue, he creates a stable story around the flood of tide, which brings out the facts, data, and real voices.

Vishnuprasad says, “This is the daily reality of the people living in the coastal areas of Kochi – how do they deal with the calm terror of rising water that refuse to leave their homes and how their lives are now defined by the growth of these tides,”

He visited the areas in Kochi, who suffered from aldit water infiltration to understand and experience it. It is no longer a seasonal phenomenon, tidal floods have forced many families in the coastal belts of Kochi, including Vapin, Edvanakkad, Enikkara, Edkohi and Thanathonithuruth, to release their homes. Although local collectives such as Edakocchi Jenkeya Sameethi are fighting for this reason, their plight continues.

Sri Vishnuprasad Durbar Hall, performing in Kochi. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Vishnuprasad gathered video footage of flooded houses from the archives of Edakochi Janekaya Samithi, and supported the video artist Akash Karunakaran, adding poetry, narrative recitation and live speech to make his ‘lecture performance’ by the inhabitants of Edkochi. “I wanted real voices to be represented. This is their reality,” they say.

‘Footnotes’ is conceived as a lecture performance, a relatively new look of performing art with elements of a traditional lecture with performance arts. This piece provides space to complete the scientific and artistic world, where the fact is mixed with creative expression. Vishnuprasad has his journey through these worlds. Vishnuprasad has worked with several organizations, including a Masters in Environmental Sciences, and a background studying hydro geology, including the Center for Environment Education. As well as a poet and writer, he later moved to art, especially surrounded by the spontaneity and adventure of performing arts. He earned a PhD in theater and performance studies from JNU, Delhi and has been searching for various possibilities of style since then. After his debut Malayalam novel Mathyas Published earlier this year, Vishnuprasad is working on his next.

Vishnuprasad says, ‘Footnotes’ will be an ongoing project, where he will continue his engagement with the issue. “This is not just a documentation, but a reaction to the changing realities.”