Description
The Poet’s Postscript
On 7 October 2023, I saw a dream, which I vaguely incorporated in the text piece dated 7 October 2023. Thereafter, some more updates on the war in Gaza and subsequent Postcards to Gaza, obviously nowhere to send, but to share on social media, somewhat akin to my ‘a flag a day from my terrace’ series during the Pandemic in 2020.
Some Postcards drifted into the stranger’s terrain, but some stood in focus on the actual situation in Gaza. For example, in the Postcard, ‘29 December 2023, the poem concludes with a pause:
There is nothing I can do.
There is everything I can do,
Take me to song’s edge,
Take me…
While the Postcards were happening, I quickly printed them for my performances. Midway during ongoing war, for a performance at India Habitat Centre, Delhi, then on 1 January 2024 for an event organised by SAHMAT at Surjeet Bhawan, Delhi, then lastly, on 13 January 2024, at the ‘BTE’ event in Kolkata, which happened to be the Global Day of Action for Gaza.
Besides text-as-material, the following ingredients shaped the Performance — POSTCARDS TO GAZA: booklet-in-itself since 7 October 2023, cotton, betadine solution, rose water, shaving blades, Band-Aids, olives and a drop of blood from the audience who volunteered. Hair from the audience as an alternative to a drop of blood, if they want to add. Finally, the recital of a few Postcards.
A stroke of the mixture as above on the first page of the booklet, and subsequent distribution to the audience.
This, and that all, in solidarity with Palestine’s demand for freedom.
Inder Salim is a Kashmir-born Delhi-based conceptual performance artist and poet practising for over 25 years. Within the landscape of contemporary art in India, Salim’s groundbreaking, body-centric work has few parallels. A multidisciplinary artist using video and photography as well as the internet interfaces to expand upon his bodily interventions, Inder Salim has foregrounded the role of art as activism.