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![മലയാള ശരീരം / Malayalam as the Body]()
മലയാള ശരീരം / Malayalam as the Body
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![മലയാള ശരീരം / Malayalam as the Body]()
മലയാള ശരീരം / Malayalam as the Body
Sajan Mani (b.1982) is an intersectional artist hailing from a family of rubber tappers in a remote village in the northern part of Keralam, South India. He works between Kochi and Berlin. His work voices the issues of marginalized and oppressed people of India, via the “Black Dalit body” of the artist. Mani’s performance practice insists upon embodied presence, confronting pain, shame, fear, and power. His personal tryst with his body as a meeting point of history and present opens onto “body” as socio-political metaphor. Several of Mani’s performances employ the element of water to address ecological issues particularly related to the backwaters of Kerala, as well as to the common theme of migration. His recent works consider the correspondence between animals and humans, and the politics of space from the perspective of an indigenous cosmology.
He has participated in international biennales, festivals, exhibitions and residencies, including ‘Odalala,’ curated by Vishal Kumaraswamy, Arts House, Australia (2024); ’Mediation on Ignorance’ (participatory performance part of Political Yoga), Art Dubai Com 2024 | Sanacion, curated by Emiliano Valdes (2024); New Performance Turku Biennale, Turku, Finland (2023); I Grant You My Freedom, Shrine Empire, India (2023 ); Performance Festival: The Non-fungible Body?, OK Center for Contemporary Art Linz, Austria (Linz and Metaverse space of Musuem) (2022); EARTH 200 CE, Verge Gallery, University of Sydney, Australia (2022); The INHABIT Artist in Residence Program, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt, Germany (2022); CONSTITUTIONS, Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Canada (2021); Travelling without a Ticket, Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin, Germany (2021); Lokame Tharavadu (The World is One Family), Kochi Biennale Foundation, Kerala, India (2021); ‘Involving Immersion’, Kunsthalle Košice, Slovakia (2020); ‘Tyger out, Tyger in’, SOMA Art Space, Berlin, Germany (2020); ‘Alphabet of Touch: Overstretched Bodies and Muted Howls for Songs’, Solo exhibition, Nome Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2020); ‘Tyger von Otherspur’, Group exhibition, Hebbel Am Uffer, Berlin, Germany (2020); ‘Out of Turn’, performance and video, Asia Art Archive for Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, India (2018); Srinagar Biennale-Basel, Online and Basel, Switzerland (2018);‘Re-Imagine India’, Delfina Foundation, New Art Exchange with Arts Council England, London, United Kingdom (2017); ‘Alternative für Weißensee’, Performance, Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin, Germany (2017); ‘Liquidity Ar’, Performance, Kampala Art Biennale, Kampala, Uganda (2016); ‘Sensorium’, Edition Love, Sunaparanta-Goa Center for the Arts, Goa, India (2016); Vancouver Biennale, Canada (2014).
Sajan was the first Indian to be awarded the Berlin Art Prize in 2021. In 2022 he was awarded the Prince Claus Mentorship Award and Breakthrough Artist of The Year from Hello India Art Awards. Between 2019 – 2022, he received an artistic research grant from the Berlin Senate, Fine Arts Scholarship from Braunschweig Projects, and the Akademie Schloss Solitude Fellowship, Germany. He was shortlisted for DAAD-Preis Award and The Weißensee Academy of Art, Berlin, Germany.
