KATHMANDU: On June 14, artist Sundar Lama came out of a tarpuline set up at The Taragaon Museum, while pushing a small chaitya-like strucutre. The structure, his face, shoes along with a hammer case that he wore around his waist as a belt were all painted in the hues of blue and white. As he came out, Lama circled the chaitya and shouted. He ended up reciting his poem in Nepali and knocking a hammer on the stone.

This activity of Lama was a part of the ‘Live Performance Art 2015’ and he started the show with his performance in the museum on June 14. Various artists displayed their creativities at the event where Lama titled his live performace ‘Parakampan’. Through this show, the artist attempted to explore his own existence and suffocation post 7.6 magnitude earthquake of April 25.

Therefore, choosing to use the colours like blue and white that resemble sky, he seemed to symbolise the need of freedom from the trauma after the tremblor.

A total of 12 Nepali artists along with Seiji Shimoda from Japan put forth their live performances in the event orgnaised by Bindu, a space for artists.

Interestingly, most artists focused their performance on the earthquake. For instance artist Riti Maharjan focused on the lack of space after earthquake, Sabita Dangol highlighted the need of blood and blood donation during the time of disaster, Ishan Pariyar emphasised the essence of accepting the reality after tremblor, Prithvi Shrestha’s theme was the loss of many unborn children due to earthquake.

Again, displaying their live performance with earthquake as their theme were artists Saurganaga Darshandhari, Binita Buddhacharya, Deepmala Maharjan and Shashi Maharjan. The difference in their work from rest of the artists was — the audience got to participate in their performances making it more interesting.

Darshandhari randomly picked the audience and gave each of them a mirror. Holding the mirror, they formed a circle. The artist, in the centre of the circle, also held the mirror and faced each audience’s mirror one by one. She ended her performance making tent-like structure on the ground with all those mirrors.

Through her performance, the artist said, she “focused on the character of people. We have different characteristics and each individual is different from the other. But all of us are same and share similar characteristics in one way or the other. After the earthquake we all were on the same ground and supported each other”.

Buddhacharya too made the audience take part in her performance — the audience were made to blow whistle, throw mud on the artist and shout earthquake related news. This performance was helpful for her to relax too. After her performance, the artist expressed, “I worked in different relief works after earthquake but there was a kind of trauma and fear inside me. After this performance I feel relieved and mental pressure too seems to lessen.”