New Delhi, April 5 -- In January this year, the Coir Godown at the Aspinwall House, Kochi, turned into a site of performative memory as two artists-Samapti Mondal and Bhaskar Hazarika-walked around with a funeral bed on their head. After setting the wooden structure down, Samapti and Bhaskar, both members of the Panjeri Artists' Union (PAU), started sorting out a mesh of entangled blue and red threads, while sharing experiences of living together amid linguistic tensions and identity politics. A symbol of caste-based religiosity, the bed became both an object and stage, and the body turned into a site for labour as well as remembrance.

Performance has emerged as a powerful medium for the Bengal-based PAU in articulating thoughts about ur...