Art in conflict zones: Nicky Chandam’s visual documentation of Manipur and the politics of performance

By the clip Nicky Chandam set-up her archetypal camera astatine a people show successful Delhi's Nehru Park astir 2010, she wasn’t reasoning astir exhibitions. She was simply watching. A self-described introvert, who grew up successful Imphal's valley, Nicky recovered show creation some terrifying yet beckoning — similar the waves connected a beach, she says.

"You cognize that erstwhile it hits you, you consciousness light. But astatine the aforesaid time, you are acrophobic the waves mightiness transportation you along." Photography became the enactment she stood on, adjacent capable to consciousness the pull.

Her accumulation — ‘Manipur & Archives: A Visual Documentation of Live Art Over a Decade’ — opened successful Chennai connected May 27 and runs done May 31. It is her 2nd amusement successful the city, 1 she has been trying to equine for 2 years.

Presented astatine Alliance Française Madras, the amusement brings unneurotic 58 carefully-selected photographs spanning 2011 to 2025 — a distillation of images that papers Manipuri show cultures crossed Delhi and Imphal.

The accumulation foregrounds the enactment of a pistillate lensman from the Northeast, whose signifier maps show spaces wrong India. The accumulation runs done May 31, with a speech astir theatre and unrecorded show with exponent A. Mangai connected May 28; continues with an evening of ghazal and poesy connected May 29 by the Amir Khusro Sangeet Academy, a speech with filmmaker Someetharan connected making art successful struggle zones connected May 30, and the screening of Pebet on May 31.

A agelong freeze

The photographs connected show work similar a cross-section of India's unrecorded creation landscape. Astad Deboo's ‘Rhythm Divine’ — a blend of Pung Cholom and Manipuri creation — represents its Delhi staging astatine Kamani Auditorium and its Imphal show astatine Chandrakriti Auditorium. There is Mamata Shankar successful ‘Amritasya Putra’, Parvathy Baul successful the collaborative ‘Raha’, Ratan Thiyam's Macbeth performed astatine Bharat Rang Mahotsav, and the ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ from the Asia Meets Asia tour. ‘Manipuri Raas’ astatine the India International Centre and the Koodiyattam play Surpanakhankam are besides among the documented works. The astir caller representation — and possibly the astir charged — is of Heisnam Sabitri successful Pebet, directed by Heisnam Kanhailal, captured astatine its 50th day solemnisation successful Imphal successful 2025. A video signaling of this show volition beryllium screened connected the concluding time of the exhibition.

For Nicky, show photography demands a peculiar benignant of invisibility. "I person to beryllium invisible to the assemblage and the performer. From there, I prime up 1 moment.”

What that infinitesimal tin hold, she explains, is thing video cannot — the azygous instant erstwhile a look opens, oregon erstwhile an emotion, dilatory oregon intense, crests. Nicky recalls a 2014 representation of a 70-year-old people vocalist who, mid-song, compared the sweetness of a effect to a mother's milk. "The emotion that came implicit his look — that photograph is inactive there, and I retrieve it adjacent today," she shares.

Although the accumulation has present arrived successful Chennai, she has tried respective times to organise it successful Manipur.

Since the taste struggle that erupted connected May 3, 2023, artists were among the archetypal to beryllium targeted — a rock-group's philharmonic instruments were seized, and programmes cancelled astatine the archetypal motion of unrest. "No engineers were asked to halt their work. No doctors. No offices. But artists were the main target." The unpredictability of beingness successful the vale has made staging thing determination astir intolerable today,” she says.

It is evident that the stakes of archiving, then, are not simply curatorial. Each photograph preserves what Nicky calls the "atmospheric dynamics and collaborative energies" of a show ecology nether pressure. At its core, she says, her signifier is an enactment of resistance, particularly arsenic she besides moonlights arsenic a lensman who captures the streets of Imphal wherever she lives. She carries retired her imaginativeness softly and patiently from down the lens.

Nicky belongs to the Meitei community, which is embroiled successful struggle with the Kuki-Zo tribe. She describes the unit successful the State arsenic revolting, peculiarly due to the fact that it has caused immense nonaccomplishment of lives, and a implicit breakdown of assemblage bonding beyond rigid partisan lines. “At this point, determination seems to beryllium nary anticipation of peace,” she shares, visibly distressed. “If specified a struggle had happened successful immoderate different mainland state, the effect would person been different. If countries tin negociate ceasefires, I wonderment wherefore that remains a distant world for Manipur,” she asks, adding that the struggle is infinitely-layered.

“All creation is political, that overmuch is true.” .

Her photographs, captured successful antithetic tones of achromatic and achromatic and showcasing past and modern creation forms, transportation the value of that statement.

The accumulation is connected astatine Alliance Française Madras successful Nungambakkam. Entry is free.