C.A.V.E. - A Land Art Project

C.A.V.E is a land art project which introspects into our own social, political, economical and existential being. The project begins with drawings of constellations on huge stones at Yusmarg (The meadow of Jesus) in hope to find a guiding star in peculiarly dark skies of Kashmir. This act of drawing led us to give upon the known restrictive tool of language and drown into the sub-conscious to look for different way of our expression, dragging and drawing out intuitive and spontaneous forms. The process of drawing with bare hands with slit from nearby river and charcoal ink crushed from fire mediated us into understanding how things really are rather than how we perceive them. Activating our sensorial by slowing down our act of seeing as well as perceiving and pushing us to understand, the act of drawing beyond its aesthetics. Thus, to draw become to drag, to pull and to bear.

I have lost my way, polaris. I have lost you in the nocturnal skies that are ever dark and bleak. Tonight, we gather here in the shephard's vale and look again into the vastness of this chaos; to search you, our guiding star.

They threw a stone into the sky to ripple away the clouds of unreason. And an epitaph was cast by the Immortal Gods with their name onto it. We shall rise and we shall sing, kept saying the earthlings.

We also engaged into developing the site by erecting pillars for the huge stones to rest upon. Simultaneously evolving the surround around the chosen site. The Project culminated with a set of performances which looked into the problematics of discourses of being in a Kashmirs' geo political landscape. These performances explored into the questions of homogenization, categorization and normalization. The performances further unpack the absurdity that surround the Kashmiri subject-hood. The project helped as well into to understanding ways in which we can engage with native inhabitants while being critical and conscious of our intervention into a public space.

Performance Segment collaborated with Inprocess Equinox

ARTISTS:Hussain Azam, Nasir Hussain, Owais, Salman B Baba, Saqib Bhat, Showkat Kathjoo, Tabish Haider, and Nasir (a local kid who remained with us throughout the workshop)

Acknowledgements:We sincerely thank Hotel Sangarmal for lending us their space to live in and the community members at Nagbal who allowed us do this project. It was our first workshop and the time when we came together to formulate this collective. We also thank Inprocess LIVE ART - Equinox for collaborating with us on performance art segment.

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