During the First World War, the British Indian Army fought for Great Britain against Germany, for which they contributed a large number of divisions and independent brigades to the European, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theatres of war. Approximately 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in the First World War of which 74,000 lost their lives and many others were wounded. The most visible of the colonial troops in the British press in 1914 were the 140,000 Indian soldiers on the Western Front. There were hundreds of photographs of Indian soldiers taken by official staff, photographers, onlookers and amateur enthusiasts.

Restage, is a performance where we observe a soldier dressed in camouflage uniform taking orders from an invisible authority who is ordering him to move back and forth. These varied instructions continue until a certain mood and posture of the body is achieved, which is also reminiscent of the poses of the Indians soldiers as seen in the archival photographs. The bodily adjustments in Restage and the re-occurring drills of the soldier, reopens the narratives of these images by speculating what could have transpired to achieve such picture-perfect (mainly orchestrated) moments. The performance confronts the problematic dynamics of documentation and/for propaganda.

On 16^th February 2018, Restage, was first realised as part of a group exhibition’s programme, Mémoires des Futurs Modernités Indiennes at Gallery 0, Centre Pompidou, Paris. The exhibition was curated by Catherine David and theperformance was produced and facilitated by Centre Pompidou.