Route of roots (Art Junction Residence Udaipur)

Route of roots is a performance in which I invited the young residents of Badanga Village, near Udaipur to take an uncomfortable walk by carrying “foot extensions” made from some roots, covered with pieces of recycled fabric. For the second time in residence in Rajasthan, I was struck by the custom of leaving cloth, scarves and clothes on trees. Asking people why, I received different answers related to death, life and purification. In this performance I give my personal interpretation, which is that of family or cultural traditions of places that we sometimes have to or want to leave behind or try to carry within us as long as possible. The fabric is also a metaphor for a community and its knowledge, so the roots are covered by it and through the fabric connected to each other, making the action of walking together an experience that requires focusing on a simple action of daily life.

“Portable Roots,” the title I gave to the performance objects, is also a rhetorical figure symbolizing the journey of plants around the world over the centuries. Indigo, tea, coffee, sugarcane, bananas, spices and ornamental plants uprooted and transplanted from east to west (but we can also say that America is east of the Far East) according to some recent botanical studies have sometimes changed the morphology of their roots to adapt to changes.This phenomenon leaves open many thoughts about the way we think about nature within phenomenological patterns based mainly on what is visible.