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BY CARON LAU
She’s not what you’d expect. Aparna Rao might be a TED speaker,
but she is far from the confi dent, self-promoting individual we’re
grown used to from this ilk. In fact, she couldn’t be more diff erent.
Soft spoken and self-eff acing to a fault, Aparna is as refreshing and
diff erent as her art itself.
Who is the girl behind the artist duo Pors & Rao?
Very shy! I’m driven by inner compulsions. If I have an urge to follow something, it can Aparna wraps us up in her all-white
really take a hold of me. This can be my biggest strength and my biggest weakness. I
can get really obsessed with something and no matter how long it takes, I will follow showcase and sets us down in the
it through till the end.
I always stay true to myself, but I have huge social anxieties and am very self- familiar world of physicality — with
conscious. I see myself always as a background person, always the one behind the
scenes picking up the props. I wouldn’t ever be the one to be on the stage. her playful spin on caricature.
I was an only child and grew up in a noisy household with lots of dramatic people.
I was never with other children until much older and became very comfortable with all
the animals around me. movement, or caricature, to mimic human characteristics, like mischief or humour,
and then we build irony through movement. So we have developed our own tools
Was there anything that you experienced during childhood that could have and methods.
triggered this unique artistic talent of yours?
When I was a child, I felt like I was my mother’s project. I had to be the model child, How does one make a living from this unique art form?
and I felt like my real world was the one I shared with my father and the animals. I It hasn’t been easy. We suff er so many losses, but now that we have our own gallery
dreamed of being an artist from young, because I enjoyed drawing, creating things. and lab, things have started looking up. We are very fortunate to have received
At school, my teachers told my mother how good I was at drawing, and she would research grants from art and science foundations, plus universities. Our presence at
snatch my work away and enter it into art competitions. Then she would pressurise the Art Basel in Switzerland this last week was a great success too, and that has been
me in to drawing things “better” for her. I started feeling that I was no longer good a real help.
enough, and it was too tiresome to let somebody into that world, so I eventually gave
up art, and decided to pursue design instead. Why is this something you decided to promote via TED talks?
Well, in the beginning, we didn’t have the technological expertise we needed to
What inspired this highly engaging artform of yours? get the installations done, and we thought it might be a good way to get those
You know, I think it was a reaction to early computer graphics. What people were connections. I was really happy with the experience and today I am a TED fellow,
experiencing was movement — plenty of it — but with no personal connection. I which means that I enjoy the support of other fellows worldwide. The community is
wanted to put back physical movement into the equation because people respond really inspiring and it helps us to become more visible.
to this in a primal way. Look at how a cat pays no attention to the TV screen, and
then pounces on a ball the minute you bounce it in front of it. People are the same. You’ve actually given two TED talks yourself now, the fi rst in 2011 and the second
We can watch movies for hours, with no physical connection whatsoever, but look in 2013. Wasn’t talking to a crowd like that a nerve-wracking experience for
what happens the minute a mosquito lands on your face and disturbs your viewing somebody as shy as yourself?
pleasure. The response is immediate because our response to physical movement is so Oh yes, it would keep me up for weeks at night, but I think, when you go there, you
strong. Then, once I’d got the spectator’s attention, I couldn’t resist having a bit of fun transcend your own feelings and in the end, you become the best you can for
— and bringing in irony and playfulness. your work.

Has this type of art ever been pursued before… in the world… in Asia? Aren’t you worried that people will copy what you do?
Other artists are doing things like this, using special eff ects and so on, and some Let them try! Maybe they can teach us how to do it better. The reality is we have
of it is quite fascinating. But what we are doing is diff erent. We are using life-like failure after failure before we can get an idea to work. But we are getting smarter,

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