Deepali Raiththa
Studio
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Title
Spectator
Medium
Video Performance
Year
2019

"Spectator" emerges as an introspective performance piece that blurs the lines between the observer and the observed. In this video, I don multiple garments, confronting the camera—and thus the audience—with a direct gaze that asks: who is watching whom? The installation features a series of transparent images of myself, each slightly overlapping the next, all captured in subtle motion, a gentle sway from side to side, a shift of weight, a soft gesture of the hand, all while standing.

This subtle dance of stillness and motion crafts an experience of mutual observation. The movements are minimal yet laden with intention, questioning the roles we instinctively adopt as spectators or performers in the theatre of everyday life. The transparency of the images suggests a multiplicity of selves, each attire and posture presenting a different facet of identity, a spectrum of personas that I, as an individual, navigate and negotiate continuously.

The installation captures the prolonged moments of quiet observation and the understated performance that arises in the act of being seen. It contemplates the dynamic interplay of gazes, the exchange of roles as the audience becomes part of the art, and I, the artist, become a spectator of their reactions. In the shared space of "Spectator," the boundaries of performance are ephemeral, and the dialogue between the seen and the seer perpetually evolves.