Performance Unwritten Embrace Falling Tree Fallen Free (2024–2026) took place in the middle of a forest in Norwich amidst the windy spring of 2024. Three other performers were invited to be a part of this project, two of whom took on the role of encasing me in plaster, while all of them spent the five-hour duration documenting the piece and its surroundings in forms of photographs, videos, audio recordings, written words and illustrations which were later reviewed, edited and combined into a nine-minute long short film.

When does a performance become a performance? Is it when the proposal stated the nature of the work before it was brought to reality? Is it when the act itself consists of movements and props that were crafted to deliver the artist’s artistic vision, that would not have been successfully communicated through other forms of media? Or is it when the choreography happens on a stage where audience participation is expected? There was an absence in the presence of spectators in Unwritten Embrace, only four informed performers and freshly-bloomed leaves on ruffling trees. This piece opened a new door for me, of realising the essence of performativity in virtually anything, and the disassociation between the act and its documentation. Since there was no one watching, this performance was done simply for the sake of ‘being art’ and nothing else, myself as the vessel of meditated creativity, creation of art in the minds of bringing non-matters into the tangible field. A tree fell in the middle of a forest that didn’t make a sound, did in fact fall, a part of the ecosystem collapsed, and home to squirrels and birds no longer stands, even though no one witnessed its downfall.

There was a period of severe depression in my teenage years, which I physically locked myself up in a room for weeks, the only comfortable way I had in my repressed brain to converse with my family was through simple words that could barely form a comprehensive sentence. My mental outbreak was rather, silent. No wall-crumbling cries or violent destructions, but instead unending sobs and darkened heartaches. There is violence and chaos within the peace of stillness, a sense of chaos and discomfort among the acts of nurturing and care. The intense emotions of loneliness and the helplessness of an unsounded shout were embodied in this performance, while the world kept on running without my active perception. Did I create this piece, or did the world allow this piece to come into its existence?