Inder Salim
Art&Deal : For you, Inder Salim is someone who is..Inder Salim : Inder Salim is a conceptual construct, besides a projection that negotiates the presence of being of Inder Salim in our socio-political reality. Two sounds, representing two different identities, and yet fused by a creative design to undermine ‘the divide’ and walk within the thicket of diversity around. Inder Salim is a mask too, to enhance the self behind the mask.The theater of this presence of Inder Salim is layered, so is the other. The outline which seemingly marks Inder Salim is doubly porous, since the body is constantly shifting from one nrepresentation to another, from one shape to another, from one understanding to another. In that sense, Inder salim begins with 3, not 2, say a triangle like oscillation. We all are so, living as multiples… A&D : What is ‘performance art’ to you? IS : Performance Art has its own little history, but the desire to touch the ‘here and now’ of us has given me an alternative sound: Harkat.
Harkat means actions. It does carry a cultural context which looks to re-assess the aesthetic that is running on a common ground with the common people. AD: How would you differentiate ‘performance art’ from ‘performing arts’? IS: Performing arts is as deep as time, but then some art historians say performance performance, say theater, dance, music etc., but performance art as a discipline is both about discipline and indiscipline, since it is not committed to produce a polished art product. Performance art is not about playing the role of a character as we witness in theater, but it often tends to engage more with the body of the performance artist in the first place. Performance art can erupt any moment, and can save little to share later. We live means performance art in a very hyperbolic way.
AD: In your career so far who/what has been your biggest inspiration? IS: Socrates. AD : Please throw some light on ‘Harkat-@-Sarai’ for our readers. IS : Harkat@Sarai is/was a name, an idea, a call to explore the possibilities of ‘doing’ Performance Art at CSDS Sarai, 29 Rajpur Road, Civil Lines, Delhi – a space well known for supporting the experimental side of the creative processes engaging subaltern and marginal subjectivities. It was an invitation from Sarai that enabled me to engage with a new audience. So far, we had seven such action-oriented events at Sarai which helped me perform with other aspiring artists/students from different backgrounds/places. This was 2011, but before that my 2006-07 fellowship at Sarai was about initiating this form of art in India. Nothing much has happened as yet, but this little effort has opened the possibilities for furthering my quest to know this form of art and disseminate it at the same time. Largely, through word of mouth, and because of various new twists and additions to the International art discourses, Performance Art, as a genre is gaining awareness here, and , in the present, this under-defined term looks well posited to embrace the freshness of moods prevalent here among the artists/non-artists of our society to experiment their respective ideas of life and arts. This under-defined and nascent state of this art-form, perhaps, provides us an opportunity to try out something fresh, something beyond schooled methodologies.