NAIR
Make Up, Made up, Made
Performance
Duration: 1 hour
Materials: make up, mirror
Documentation: Nikshith Shetty
Bangalore, IND (2019)
This piece explores the idea of gender being performative. I explore this through the routine and action of applying and removing make-up. The performativity aspect is reflected through the use of elements that are shared with performance/theatre: make-up, costume (clothes), set (dresser/furniture). In life, these are things that “make” genders visually identifiable. Make-up, generally speaking, tends to be something that is associated to women. A product strategically honed over years to be made appealing and identified to the female consumer and a ritual performed almost every morning by most women in the world. Personally, I too struggled with just being in my natural appearance. I would find it impossible to go out without applying eye liner. It became something I wouldn’t do without. But over the years, this changed and I could find comfort in my eyes and me just being as it is- untouched, un-made, undone. This is strongly in opposition to the relationship between man and make-up. For a man, generally speaking, make-up would either be acceptable in the confines of the house as a child or as an adult for momentary fun. In a queer context, make-up finds flexibility and promotes the experimenting and identity appropriation that comes with it. But normatively speaking, it’s “fun” vs “expectation” that divides the genders. A woman is expected to look and behave a certain way. This piece questions these expectations and plays out the ritual (repetitive application and removal of make-up) leading into ruination (which almost has an underlying self-infliction) which finds resolution in ceasing the “doing” and just “being”. This is the dual process of Undoing that I explore in this piece. The very same thing that beautifies and perfects (putting make-up) is the one that also leads to a complete mess (constant removal and spreading of make-up). The idea of “ruination/undoing” of the “made up/gendered” body.
