- Event
- Installation
- Lecture
MUDRA MANDALA — The Poetic Expression of Mohiniyattam
with Arya Gopi, Resident at Hertzlab
Wed, November 19, 2025
- Location
- Media Lounge
- PanoramaLab
- Language
- English
What does the body know that language cannot say? How do ancient gestures speak to our hypermediated present?
Artist and scholar Dr. Arya Gopi presents “MUDRA MANDALA – The Poetic Expression of Mohiniyattam”, a cycle of twenty-four video-poems that reimagine the hand gestures (mudras) of Mohiniyattam – a classical Indian dance form – as living texts. These works treat gesture not as symbolic ornament but as a parallel language system, equally capable of philosophy, metaphor, and meaning-making. Each mudra becomes both archive and utterance: the hand that forms Pataka (the open palm) carries millennia of ritual memory while speaking urgently to the present moment.
Program
10 am–6 pm: Preview at PanoramaLab, ZKM Foyer
2 pm: Artist Talk in the Medialounge