Nikhil Chopra: Recomposing the Live
By Meera Menezes
At the Dutch Warehouse in Kochi, the performance artist Nikhil Chopra was busy gearing up to launch a live art program titled “Where Do We Stand Now?” Slated for the opening week of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2022 from December 13 to 17, the string of performances was curated by Chopra and the live-arts platform HH Art Spaces, and went ahead despite the Biennale’s two-week delay. The energy and buzz in the air was palpable. For the performers this was the first large-scale live event in which they had participated since the pandemic. Chopra had flown in for the week, taking a short break from an intense six-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. There he was in the middle of a new project called Recomposing the Panorama, based on his time with inhabitants of the French capital to reimagine a vision of the city. After he stared at five canceled projects as Covid-19 struck, the Goa-based artist has revived his live-performance practice once again.