Ranbir Kaleka (New Delhi)

Synopsis: Starting with the first five years of his life in a village haveli (mansion), where each family member was a unique storyteller, Kaleka’s lecture-performance revolves around snippets of stories and images of his video, painting and sculptural works. “My brother and I were the only two children in the large house. Nothing major ever happened in the house, and time moved slowly, giving great significance to the tiniest ‘non-event’. These types of phantasmagoric performances and the architecture of the haveli formed my inner life and sense of visual proportion. As I moved out from the village to the town, and then to the city, travelling to different regions of India, I actively collected orally-narrated stories from strangers and friends. From the recesses of my mind where they had settled, the accumulated stories emerge as invented ‘events’, creating a psychological map of my mind and of the people amongst whom he lives.”