In his durational performance One Water, Many Lands (2023), commissioned as part of the exhibition Indigo Waves and Other Stories: Re-Navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora, Nikhil Chopra will evoke ecologies of water cycles that interlink the Indian Ocean with the lands it laps against.

Water connects us all. In its liquid state, in its vital connection to life and civilisation, as it flows through, along and against land and air, it carries with it narratives of love and war, displacement and settlement, trade and exchange, adventure and fear. During the performance Nikhil Chopra will dwell on a floating platform, painting waterscapes on canvas sheets with deep blue pigments and ochres obtained from clay. With this series of works, one realised for every hour of the performance, Chopra will create twelve islands, each with its own image of water, land and sky. After the performance, all elements will be left behind coming together in an installation.

In the two-day performance and spatial installation, Chopra’s body will act as a catalyst, transfiguring the architecture of the Gropius Bau with representations of the sea, celebrating the oneness of water, the connectedness of its ecologies and its eternal cycles.