At an elevation 11,811 feet, a bright pink ribbon of people weaves across the stark mountainous terrain of Ladakh, in India’s northernmost tip. Their movements are mesmerizing. But this is so much more than a pretty visual.
“There’s something extremely humbling about being in the mountains. It’s so majestic, it removes all ego,” says Doyel Joshi, one half of the artist duo behind what could well be one of the world’s highest-altitude art performances, in Ladakh’s remote Disko Valley.
A sparsely populated region known for its arid landscapes and towering mountain ranges, it’s a unique place for an artistic statement. It’s part of sā Ladakh, a biannual art exhibition with a focus on the intersection of culture, climate, and community in a bid to inspire the next generation of custodians of the land.
For their installation called ‘Into the Pinke’ during last year’s edition, Joshi and her husband, fellow artist Neil Ghose Balser of Mumbai-based Howareyoufeeling.studio, collaborated with 50 students from the local Mahabodhi Residential School.
Dressed in the brightest of pinks inspired by the Ladakhi jackets worn in the region, the students instantly inject color and life to their arid surroundings by their mere presence. Then, in a parade that feels simultaneously solemn and celebratory, each individual merges into a seamless whole, forming fluid lines and circles to the sound of traditional songs honoring the land.
“With the colors, we created a very stark difference to the land, but actually we are the land. So we were playing with this dichotomy, these two opposite polarities, but only to actually understand that there’s no disconnection,” says Doyel Joshi.
In the culmination of the performance, the students perform an almost ritualistic version of ‘musical chairs’. With every lull in the singing, a chair is removed and the number of remaining students in the group shrinks.
“The urgency with which it compels you to look, is the urgency that we felt in that space with the connection of the human and the land, and not seeing them as two different things,” Joshi explains. For both her and Balser, the work embodies a “connected presence” and appeals emotionally to our sense of community and responsibility.
“I think that living with the land, you have no choice but to form a community, to be able to survive and thrive. That’s what we learned.”
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