Nerpala: Dileep Chilanka

As a movement practitioner and performance-maker, Dileep Chilanka has been contemplating the silent lives of objects, with specific attention to nerpala—a sturdy framework of wooden planks found in shops across rural Kerala. Over the years, the nerpala has drifted into the isolated world of arcane objects that have lost their ground to modern and mechanical devices. While metallic shutters open and shut with a crisp concision, the nerpala can only be manoeuvred through a series of movements and motions. It is in the rhythms of these movements that Chilanka situated himself vis-à-vis the wooden planks that make a nerpala. Abstracting the operation of nerpala through its dreary labour and quotidian rituals, Chilanka melds sequence, structure, geometry, and architecture through an economy of movement. Enacted as an exposition of the wooden structure, Nerpala is a commemoration of labour, localised practices, and sylvan imaginaries; all residing within the architectural shell of elementary forms which lend to the artist’s movement practice. 

This performance has been developed and conceptualized by Dileep Chilanka as part of Serendipity Arts Residency 2023, and is performed by Nandakishore Aravindakshan, Sarath Vellamthadathil Sreedharan and Dayananda Aklesh Jayaram