Nimi Ravindran’s 'To Forget is to Remember is to Forget' reimagines the idea of the inheritance of loss

Traversing through visual and sound installations, video, photography, print and theatrical storytelling, this recently premiered exhibition performance by Nimi Ravindran titled To Forget is to Remember is to Forget tries to reimagine the idea of the inheritance of loss. The works in the show trace layered relationships between memory, mirror, mind and mother — in her attempt to reimagine the idea of the inheritance of loss. “I’ve been researching the ‘idea’ of memory for about 10 years now. Scientists have been telling us for years that our memory is unreliable, a lot of what we think as facts are often not 100 percent true and our imaginations fill in the gaps with fiction, which we then think are facts. So the title comes from that,” Nimi reveals.

The concept of the show explores the idea of memory and its place in our lives. The performance spans years and sometimes takes the audience back to another time, about growing up in a city like Bengaluru and what has been lost. “This took various shapes and forms over the years. I’ve directed several theatre performances with actors and a ready script, but for the first time, I felt that form would not serve me. So, I started exploring video art, photography, installations, sound etc... and all of that found its way into this production,” the artiste shares.

The performance promises a photo box installation with an audio recording inside that narrates stories related to memory and photographs of what occurred over the last few decades. Three films explore the idea of memory through abstract landscapes and banal actions while tape recorders play music from another time and place. “There is a wall of words titled Erase and the Library of the Lost is an installation of 200 glass jars representing memories that have been lost. And lastly, the performance is a single body in space narrating a story about memories... what stayed and what was lost,” the performer concludes.

₹499. January 4, 6.30 pm. At Shoonya — Centre for Art and Somatic Practices, Lalbagh Road.