This project revolves around Georgian Queen Ketevan, who died as a martyr in seventeenth-century Persia. The recent unearthing of the queen’s severed hand near a ruined church in the mangrove forests of Goa, formed the starting point for Kodikal’s artistic research. She developed a board game and a game-installation in which the Queen’s hand becomes a doorway into a mangrove-like labyrinth of stories and speculative perspectives on 400 years of geopolitics.
In her lecture-performance ‘Have I Become Her Stories?’, Kodikal journeys through a haunting dream of the queen, exploring both the meta-narrative implicit to the game, and its many forking paths. The artist herself seems to have become entangled in these narratives, as she shares anecdotes about her research, game-making, and the people she encountered along the way. The Queen appears to have become a haunting obsession.
This event is part of exhibition The Travelling Hand, curated by Katayoun Arian.
Language: English
Video registration by Marieke van der Lippe