By Campbelltown Arts Centre
‘Pakiboy²’ is a two-channel film installation comprising documentation of an original dance work created by Jiva Parthipan, London, 2000, alongside a restaging, in which the artist dances with his younger self, Sydney, 2025.
The original ‘Pakiboy’ delved into themes such as coming out to family, race, desire and being comfortable in one’s own skin, while traversing multiple identities. ‘Pakiboy²’, conceived in collaboration with filmmaker Zanny Begg and dramaturg Martin del Amo, explores the artist’s 50-year-old body, which has not danced for two decades, addressing his degenerative neurological condition, Parkinson’s Disease, and the aging body. Using the archive as a starting point, this project asks what is the original and what is the copy?
* ‘Paki’ is a racial slur used in the UK against people of South Asian or Indian subcontinental descent.
Jiva Parthipan is a Sydney-based curator, director, and artist working locally and internationally. Born in Sri Lanka, Parthipan trained in classical Indian dance in the United Kingdom and earned a Master’s in Performance (Distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was the first male dancer to perform with Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, a leading British Indian contemporary dance company.
His multidisciplinary work has been presented at Tate Modern and the Institute of Contemporary arts (London), the International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts (Paris, Dublin), the National Review of Live Art (Glasgow), Performance Space (Sydney), Bone Performance Art Festival (Switzerland), and JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience (South Africa), among others.
As a Creative Producer in Australia, his projects include Handfed (Museum of Contemporary Art), Little Baghdad (Powerhouse Youth Theatre, Australian Museum), and Dance Africa Dance (Riverside Theatres). At STARTTS in Western Sydney, he supports artists from emerging and refugee communities.
Parthipan has curated for the Biennale of Sydney (‘PARAI YAH!’ 2020, ‘River Project’ 2022) and co-curated ‘OLDER THAN LANGUAGE’ at Salamanca Arts Centre. He creatively produced the film ‘Stories of Kannagi’, directed by Zanny Begg, which won the 2020 Blake Prize Residency. Previously, he was an Associate Lecturer in Performance at Central Saint Martins, London. His work is featured in ‘A Country Too Far’ (Penguin Australia) and Fiona Kelly McGregor’s ‘Buried Not Dead’.
Zanny Begg is an artist filmmaker based in Bulli, NSW. She is the recipient of the 2023 Creative Australia Visual Arts Fellowship and has exhibited widely in Australia and around the world. Zanny is a friend and long term collaborator with Jiva Parthipan.
