Meru is a multidisciplinary series, which spans film, live performance, and a durational performance. According to Buddhist and Hindu cosmology, Indra’s Net is an ever-expanding network of energetic cords with a jewel resting at each intersection. The jewels create an image of infinity, as they all reflect each other’s surfaces. Indra’s net resides above Mount Meru, the sacred land I have named this project after. As a queer South Indian-American woman, I created this series as an act of ancestral veneration, with the intention of exploring the genealogical relationship I have with soil as an ancestor and as a simultaneous metaphor for burial and rebirth. The short film and durational performance focus on the interconnectedness and cyclical nature of life, in response to the spiritual and bodily binaries imposed by colonialism, assimilation, and heteropatriarchy. The live performance is an expression of what happens when that innate interconnectedness manifests as displacement or as a wound, specifically through codependency, statelessness, and isolation.
Directed by Anju Marie Kasturiraj | Performed by Maria Kontouli, Pablo Temboury, and Nat Li Lin Steinhouse
