A barefooted man in denim trousers walks through a desolate scorched landscape till he disappears over the horizon to the accompaniment of bird song, a sort of dirge for the forest that once existed there. For artist Ajesh Suresh, The Walk, a site-specific performance art captured on video, was the best way to express his anguish over the slash-and-burn practice followed in Central Sumatra, Indonesia, for the cultivation of palm plantations.
“Site-specific installations and performance art are my way of expressing myself. A songster would have sung about his experience, I do it through art,” says Ajesh, a graduate of Fine Arts from Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath and a postgraduate from Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, who hails from Kerala. His first solo exhibition in India, Conversations…Memoirs of an artist!, will begin on September 23 at Amuseum, Thiruvananthapuram.
Ten video installations showcase some of the major work he did in Southeast Asia during his 11-year stay in Malaysia. The video installations, enhanced with snatches of conversations, music and natural sounds, are projected on the wall.
