2019
Mermaid, Balloon, Performance, Blood Collecting, Muscles Stimulation, AR, 99 Years contract.
Colomboscope Festival, Srilanka
curated by Natasha Ginwala
Supported by The Goethe Institut
www.merchantstrinity.com
Merchants of Ocean: The Power
Merchants of Merchants: The People
Merchants H2O: The Spirit
Are we fortunate to be unfortunate souls?
Dealing with our agents.
Become an oyster claim your reward.
The power from the Mother of Pearl, the string of power that bonds us.
Flounce and fan ourselves like a puppet of tear, are we flattered or fear
Merchants Trinity project at Colomboscope relates to infrastructural desire and the futurity of maritime ports seen through wealth accumulation, labour infiltration and geopolitical control, but also the affective meshwork of greed and possessiveness that strikes at the level of the individual and corporatized entities. Through researching unfinished projects such as the Kra Canal situated between the Andaman Sea and South China Sea, the artist studies complex relationships between China, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Departing from the motif of the pearl as a signifier of ambitious strategizing and predatory tendencies in the oceanic sphere, Henryandpartners pursue a performative invitation entering into a contract with invited audience members based on trust, mutual desire and business-minded “collaboration.”
Merchants Trinity is an initiatives studying the desire and ambition to chase the dream and power conquest of a global empire by looking at geopolitical gesture, geoeconomic implications and implementations, psychological components that embed and constructed under infrastructure and mind manipulation, and the study of Pearl as the motif of desire, the luminescence light shine within the mind of dreamchaser.
Merchants H2O Temple of the Sea
Merchants of Merchants: Ritual
Durational Performance
Territory puppeteering – Muscle stimulation
Transformation into an Oyster with AR
Research
Travel from Colombo to Hambantota to research on Hambantota Port and city
Research note and exhibition sketches
Thank you
Goethe Institut Thailand
Natasha Ginwala
Shanika Perera
Danushka Marasinghe
Theertha Artists Collective
Technical team: Jutamad Thammatonsiri, Din Chan
Special thanks: WenLong, Pan SiMing, Tamara Fernando
Research and Production period: September 2018 – January 2019
Exhibition Date: 24 – 31 January 2019
Location: RIO COMPLEX, Colombo, Srilanka https://goo.gl/maps/1uyPofgrzg62
Festival Website: https://www.colomboscope.lk/past-festivals
Media
https://ocula.com/magazine/features/colomboscope-2019-cross-currents-and-dissonan/