Course of Law

They are both players in a fictional courtroom drama in which the lawyers, artists and judge are real. The issue under scrutiny is burning and the evidence is true. Titled “Landscape as Evidence: Artist as Witness”, the performance recreates a trial in which the fate of the environment is at stake. An imaginary River Linking Project has been passed and theatre director Zuleikha Chaudhari and Khoj International Artists Association have placed a petition opposing it on grounds of ecological devastation. A commission of enquiry is set up by the Lok Sabha to examine the validity of the petitioners’ objections, each side spruces its arguments and the hearing begins. The other two witnesses are artist Ravi Agarwal, whose work is based on ecology, society, urban space and capital, and Sheba Chhachhi, whose photographs and installations deal with the dynamics of gender and the marginalised, among others.

The three-hour performance will take place at the Speakers Hall, Constitution Club on Rafi Marg today. “The performance is structured and partly scripted, but it is also real. Like scientists and engineers, artists deal with the world and there’s something we want to say. The law deals with tangibles but artists deal with intangibles. When there is loss to life, you can sense it but not articulate it. That’s when an artist steps in to provide perspective,” says Chaudhari.

Justice Yatindra Singh, former Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court, presides over the commission while Norma Alvares, an advocate of the Bombay High Court and an activist on social and environmental issues, represents the petitioners. “No matter what kind of ruling we get in this trial, a set of questions will emerge in the minds of the audience. If the judgment is in our favour, it would be interesting to think what it means in real life. If it is not in our favour, the question is, ‘What can art do in actual situations’,” says Chaudhari.

Rehearsal for the performance at Khoj moves in fits and starts as artists get tips on courtroom behaviour and the lawyers try to follow the script. “When the lawyer asks you a question, you have to look at the judge and give the answer,” points out Singh, while environmental lawyer Norma Alvares tracks the right passage in the script. Chaudhari has explored the interface between theatre and a court hearing in her previous work, Rehearsing the Witness, a mock trial of a famous case from history — the Bhawal Court Case. “How the law functions is also a performance. The witness, for instance, has been rehearsed by the lawyer on what to answer and how to answer,” says Chaudhari.

In October 2011, British lawyer Polly Higgins put two fictional CEOs on mock trial at the Supreme Court of England and Wales for “Ecocide”, or damage to the environment. “The Ecocide trial dealt with whether environmental crime can be looked as a crime. Our performance is far from that. I am interested in the environment as well as the need to explore the possibility of art and theatre. What is the value of artists and artwork when you cannot measure it in tangible terms?” says Chaudhari. For Khoj, the project follows engagements such as the Yamuna Project in 2007 and Public.Art.Ecology in 2010. One of its present projects is called “Ecologies of the Byways”.

Landscape as Evidence will be performed at the Speakers Hall, Constitution Club on Rafi Marg today. Entry: free. Time: 5.30 pm