ARCHIPELAGO ARCHIVES EXHIBIT #3: WORDSOUNDSIMAGES - KIRAN KUMAR

Archipelago Archives is an artistic research project that (re-)invents dances of an imaginary archipelago in the Indian Ocean, somewhere between present-day India and Indonesia. Since 2015, Kiran Kumar has been dancing in and among the traditions of Orissa, Java as well as Singapore. The imagined, ethnographic (re-)construction of dances is an emancipatory gesture: “It is really just an excuse to urgently throw open a trifold inquiry: first, a critical inquiry into organisations of experience and knowledge in a pre/post-colonial South/East Asian archipelago; second, a conceptual inquiry into non-Eurocentric understandings of the human body-mind; and third, an aesthetic inquiry into artistic practices that is part reconstructive, part speculative, part archeological, part anthropological and part fantastical.” The outcomes of these studies are periodically shared through a series of Archipelago Archives Exhibits. Conceived as a series of open letters, often addressed to dead representatives of specific traditions of experience and knowledge, the exhibits aim to invoke unrealised (or at least inadequately realised) dialogues within and between these traditions.

Kiran Kumar (b.1983, Bangalore) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher. His work focuses on the intersection of artistic and scientific modes of articulation in dance, and ranges from performance to writing, video and installation works. Following initial study in mechanical engineering at the National University of Singapore, he holds an MFA in new media art from the City University of Hong Kong and an MA in dance from the University of Arts Berlin. His research projects have been supported by the National Arts Council Singapore’s Research and Development Grant and the Volkswagen Foundation’s (Germany) Arts and Science in Motion program. Currently he is an Associate Member at the Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences.

http://kirankumar.work/