Walk the Art

He is fascinated by mythology and pop culture. Almost all his creations,installations and performances are a testimony to that. Even something as mundane as a tubelight in his studio connotes a personal pop culture reference to Rahal. He plays a video where he uses the glowing white tube as a sword in a dark setting,while wearing stark white clothes. “It is highly inspired by haute couture and Star Wars,” says the 23-year-old,who majored in painting from Rachna Sansad in Mumbai. He owes his growing inclination towards performance arts partly to one of his professors,Nikhil Chopra,and partly to his own desire to live fantasies,something that the art form allows him to. The recent Inlaks Fine Art Award for 2012 has helped him win a scholarship taking care of his finances.

The whole point of this series of performances,says Rahal,is a symbiotic give-and-take process between him and his audiences that will help him create his narrative,which he calls ‘metanarrative’. “I don’t predetermine the shape of a story; they form themselves through Bhramana and finally culminate into a bigger picture,” he explains.

The possibility of cops ruining his show doesn’t bother him much. Instead,he justifies the choice of venues such as the skywalk and subway. “It’s a lot like walking over the road,across the sky or walking under ground; it’s biblical,almost like Moses’ parting of the Red Sea and walking through it,” he says.