Manchester may be miles away from Mumbai,but they share a rich industrial heritage. For performance artiste Nikhil Chopra,tying the two cities with a common thread involved delving into their past. The result was a grand showcase that lasted 65 hours titled,Coal on Cotton,at the Whitworth Art Gallery,which concluded at the Manchester International Festival. I was trying to create a link between Manchester and Mumbai. Manchester has traditionally been known for its cotton mills during the 19th century and Mumbai has seen its share of mills too, says Chopra. In terms of scale,he claims this is his biggest,coming close to his earlier performance which involved walking from north Mumbai to Colaba and spreading cotton fabric along the way. His latest performance involved scribbling on the walls of a life-sized cotton tent,which he created using 480 metres of cotton yarn at his studio workshop in Goa. He was dressed,at various times,as a cotton mill worker,a shrewd mill boss from Manchester and an Indian cotton farmer dressed in tattered clothes,all along swathed in ash. Chopra was eating,sleeping,changing and resting at the gallery for three days and two nights during the performance,which started at 4.40 am on July 5 and finished at 9.30 pm on July 7. His aim was to trace the idea from dawn to dusk,and the cycle of day and night. Chopras research of four months began with visits to mills across Manchester. He was struck by the similarities in working conditions which are still prevalent in factories in India today,of poor sanitation and harsh-working conditions. I was trying to put a magnifying glass on the two materials I am most comfortable with: coal and cotton. When I scratched the surface I saw there was a common link between these two materials and cities, says Chopra,over the phone from Manchester. Over 8,000 people turned up for the show. I walked into the show thinking it would be alright. But five hours into the performance,I was exhausted,and I still had 60 hours remaining, he says. His tent became the canvas upon which he drew images using charcoal pieces of chimneys from mills,tracing the mill tradition and the exploitative nature of factory owners across Europe. Whatever he did,Chopra was careful not to become dogmatic. I was thinking about the Vidarbha farmers who are victims of bad governance and the mill workers in Manchester. The work is not preachy, says Chopra,who last performed at the Festival in 2009 in a group show that showed him playing a multitude of characters. Chopra,a post-graduate in Fine Arts from the Ohio State University,has had his work exhibited at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009,besides shows at Museum of Contemporary Art,Chicago,and recently,he used his favourite medium charcoal at a show titled Blackening in May at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi. I keep coming back to this medium because it is a very gradual,ephemeral material and not factory produced. You have to really come close to it to see that you have lost the drawing. The material lends to the nature of the performance which is also ephemeral, he says. While ideating his performances,Chopra says he relies on the space itself and then excavates stories from it. For my work,the location creates the context and the work becomes the fodder, says Chopra,who will head back to Goa for a short break,before commencing work on other projects.
