A Synthesis of 15 in Costume in Journey as Nomadic Traveller.
At Documenta 14, Athen Greece and Kassel, Germany. (Costume worn by Nikhil Chopra)
Reflecting on processes of identity and migration, the assemblage Synthesis of 15 in Costume in Journey as Nomadic Traveller describes the portraiture of a persona characterised as a ‘nomadic traveler’
Artifices that collate to form as a whole a collage of objects prompting reflexive notions of ‘nomadic traveller’ through belonging and ownership. These artifices are old, disowned pieces of garment and textile. Clothes are transient in nature and expendable especially those found in flea markets and second hand stores where these were obtained .The clothings symbolise displacement as forgotten through space, time and movement are reinstated to frame ‘the nomadic traveller’. Without these objects and clothing one can no longer identify with the person wearing them. Through costume thus depicting this traveller journeying within the performative space of live art.
The production of costume as works were created having sourced textiles and vintage clothing from different parts of Europe between Athens and Kassel while other pieces stitched in India. The intention was to signify a nomadism of materials and objects which is worn by the character ‘nomadic traveller’. The costume works had an easy accessibility to a global means of production through its use of materials, textiles and labour and was shipped and couriered to be used and worn around a route of Europe from Athens to Kassel. But yet, in a juxtaposition of nomadism and movement the traveller and his clothing points out to a disjunction between how in today's global economy of free trade under capitalistic systems, goods can be easily moved across borders but human beings cannot.