Alavukolam

​

In an absurd turn of
events, the photographic scale employed by a colonial ethnographer is left behind. The glaring power hierarchy between him and his ideal subjects of study gives them an opportunity to ascribe the instrument of measurement, the scale, the status of a totem. At the hands of the native subjects, the instrument is also ascribed a protective spirit, the Alavukolam.

In a rare moment of repatriation of cultural objects that were displaced under colonial rules, a descendent of the former colonial subjects, who is on a research fellowship at a prestigious performance studies research center in Berlin unravels the epistemological weapon from its wrap.