By the time Nicky Chandam set-up her first camera at a folk performance in Delhi's Nehru Park around 2010, she wasn’t thinking about exhibitions. She was simply watching. A self-described introvert, who grew up in Imphal's valley, Nicky found performance art both terrifying yet beckoning — like the waves on a beach, she says."You know that when it hits you, you feel light. But at the same time, you are afraid the waves might carry you along." Photography became the shore she stood on, close enough to feel the pull.
An image of Khangembam Mangi Singh — Pena Balladeer, Imphal 2014
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Her exhibition — ‘Manipur & Archives: A Visual Documentation of Live Art Over a Decade’ — opened in Chennai on May 27 and runs through May 31. It is her second show in the city, one she has been trying to mount for two years.Presented at Alliance Française Madras, the show brings together 58 carefully-selected photographs spanning 2011 to 2025 — a distillation of images that document Manipuri performance cultures across Delhi and Imphal.The exhibition foregrounds the work of a woman photographer from the Northeast, whose practice maps performance spaces within India. The exhibition runs through May 31, with a conversation about theatre and live performance with exponent A. Mangai on May 28; continues with an evening of ghazal and poetry on May 29 by the Amir Khusro Sangeet Academy, a conversation with filmmaker Someetharan on making art in conflict zones on May 30, and the screening of Pebet on May 31.A long freezeThe photographs on display read like a cross-section of India's live art landscape. Astad Deboo's ‘Rhythm Divine’ — a blend of Pung Cholom and Manipuri dance — represents its Delhi staging at Kamani Auditorium and its Imphal performance at Chandrakriti Auditorium. There is Mamata Shankar in ‘Amritasya Putra’, Parvathy Baul in the collaborative ‘Raha’, Ratan Thiyam's Macbeth performed at Bharat Rang Mahotsav, and the ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ from the Asia Meets Asia tour. ‘Manipuri Raas’ at the India International Centre and the Koodiyattam play Surpanakhankam are also among the documented works. The most recent image — and perhaps the most charged — is of Heisnam Sabitri in Pebet, directed by Heisnam Kanhailal, captured at its 50th anniversary celebration in Imphal in 2025. A video recording of this performance will be screened on the concluding day of the exhibition.
