Is Death Possible? — Seema Kohli

Is death possible? I wonder.

Everything I look around seems to be pulsating with a certain rhythm. The trees, the bushes, the shrubs, the flowers, the closed bud, the pregnant clouds in the sky, the soft drizzle, the thrust of that droplet from the glaciers which defies all mountains and egoistic rocks and bursts into a waterfall flowing into a stream joining hands with throaty laughter widening its girth into a river and merging into the sea. Seas into oceans and oceans melting into the skies. Evaporating into the limitless air coming back as life again and falling back on earth, consummating the whole life form.

In the process of all this activity, what all has it given life to? Everything is recycled, positively, rejuvenated, new. Everything is on a serious but continuous journey. Isn’t it amazing to see that innate table, that cup full of tea, that toothpaste on my brush, that half-eaten apple, that little ant carrying that morsel of sugar, that firefly in my garden, that twinkling star melting into the infinite sky? Can we differentiate the living from the non-living?

Is this questioning only in my mind? Are all these elements not thinking? Is it that my limited mind sees some as lesser or greater? Or I am just incapable to penetrate into their lives and journeys. This is the mystery of the cosmos; we all know the answer, deep inside. Are we ready to accept and realize it?

In my artistic practice, I engage with the philosophical inquiry of life, to grasp the metaphysical truth of existence and the cosmic energy that is responsible for all creation. Employing the fundamental tenets of mythology as my tools, I wish to emphasise the cyclicality of existence and the rejuvenation of life forms through the unending processes of birth, death, and re-birth.

In my performance at the Rajarani Temple at Bhubaneshwar, Orissa, I attempt to explore these fundamental questions about the cycle of life, death, and rejuvenation. Within the space of this centuries-old, idol-less temple, I re-incarnate myself as the idol and absorb, react and reinterpret the energy that inhabits around me during which I engage in a series of symbolic gestures like encircling the temple or closing and opening and closing the door of the garbhagriha. The idea of circumambulation - an act that finds resonance in Hindu worship and shamanic practices as well as in the whirling dervishes of Sufism is an integral gesture of my performance signifying the never-ending loop of creation and the continuation of life rhythm. The closing and opening of the door becomes a visual metaphor of the journey towards a heightened awareness of the Divine as well of the Self.

Through this performance, I interrogate myself on the relationship of life and death, of continuity, of belief, of faith, of ritual, of consolidation and disintegration of it all. The relationship between the idol and me. Does the idol need me or do I, the worshipper, need an idol? Using the body as an instrument to unshackle the confines of the body, flesh, and blood, the intellect becomes subservient to consciousness readily supplying the archetypes latent in my subconscious.

The work actively contests the role of an artist today. Is it different from the traditional role of a priest/shaman/psychic? Has it evolved to mean something more? Engaging with a wide circuit of references like iconography, world mythology, philosophy and literature, as tools, I weave together a story to recover my relationship with this small gap of “death or rejuvenation” through the lost feminine narrative in cultural history.

Against the background of the recorded performance at the RajaRani temple, Bhubaneswar in Odisha, India, I perform a monologue. It is a live site-specific performance lasting over 22min 30sec.

Concept, Direction: Seema Kohli
Photography and edit: SakthiDoss
Sound: Sahil Vasudeva
23min 25sec