Commissions

Curated as part of ‘Scores in Transit: Resonances of the Plural’

On three panels that form an open square room, mini performances unfold on streets, balconies, and in doors and windows. Circle of Stories is a collaboration between an artist and theatre performers. Sunil Mehra along with Pallav Mishra, Enab Khizra and Mohammed Aqib chose short texts and poems to be woven into a tapestry of diverse performances performed within the Dastangoi tradition while theatre activist Lokesh Jain wrote (and also performed in) brief scenarios for Chavi Jain, Paridhi, Pakhi Jain, Shahana, Aara, Arun Kumar Kalra, Monty, Rizwan, Aurengzeb, Poonam, Rekha and Vikram.

In this multi-sensory installation Kaleka’s longstanding repertoire of immersive, timebased media environments comes into conversation with different traditions of theatre and storytelling. It layers poetry, dialogue, and narrative fragments onto architectural facades animated with characters who appear, reappear, and dissolve across windows, doors, and thresholds, inviting us into their stories. The city of Delhi is a key protagonist across this unfolding theatre, evoking the fluid, morphing presence of the storyteller across time and place. Here two forms of telling—contemporary street theatre in conversation with a storytelling tradition imported from the Persian courts by the Mughals and revived in 2005 by the legendary litterateur Shamsher Rahman Farooqi and his nephew Mehmood Farooqui. Using carefully choreographed projections and spatial design, it crafts an affective, atmospheric environment, weaving multiple encounters between architecture, memory, and language. The project continues Kaleka’s investigation into spatiality and interactivity in contemporary art, while anchoring itself in the timeless act of storytelling—of listening, imagining, and remembering. 

Special thanks to Sunil Mehra and Lokesh Jain who performed as well as worked on the scripts. Thanks to Subodh ji for assisting in the shooting at Mithai-Pul Basti.

Commissioned by Serendipity Arts for Serendipity Arts Festival 2025.