movie still of Xanadu: The Bastards Dream, scene The Goddess of Death (Mannee performing at the Indian Ocean shores, Reunion Island, 2015, Winter=silence. European sleeping acres, 2018
movie still from video THE LAST SUPPER, 2025
INTRO - THE HOMAGE
The transmedia art performance-installation THE LAST SUPPER is creating a collective and individual “space out of space” in the public sphere for the homage to the deceased person, a family member, friend, lover, by voluntary participants using the enlarged perception of an interactive transmedia art installation to foster a wider awareness and comprehension of Life after Death, entertain, enjoy the interplay in close relationship with the depar ted person, offering an unusual homage
beyond dogma and religious believes. The performance installation is accessible to the general public, who can observe it in their own way. As such, this evolving, performative installation artwork grows with each participant, embodying and manifesting the existential concept of 'Wandel' (transformation).
The Last Supper is based on Nikunja's artistic research and general artistic formulation of media fusion, and is rooted in his art-theoretical concept of Interactive Matter, which unites Split Authority and Temporary Autonomous Zone as major atributes and is widely linked to quantum physics field-theory and emergence science.
The Last Supper explores the transition from life to death, formulating seven stages of this existential experience through artistic representations of tastes present in ' taste drops' (small pastries, pralines and/or small cakes as edible sculptures). These are presented in the installation and form a central element of the transmedia art work as a performative link between physical and non-physical realities.
Participating performer-guests honouring a loved one are invited to take a seat at a long white table and place a framed photograph of the person they are honouring on the table. A triptych video projection by Nikunja, based on various video performances with Mauritian artist Mannee and image compositions related to the seven transformative spiritual stages, illuminates the table
The particioant-performers are served the seven Taste Drops by live performers, introducing the linking serving ritual into their space and time defining 24h durational performance dedicated to the Egyptian Death book's: COMING FORTH BY DAT. The participant-performers are invited to choose water, milk, red wine or rum as a drink. The serving performers interact with the space and participants as well as the exhibition visitors through choreographed movements.
The surrounding space is determined by 4 large scale paintings by Nikunja. One of this multi-material works called Rain-PainThings, is a tryptich illuminated by the real-time digital movie live transmission of Hans Holbein's painting 'The Christ in the Tomb' from 1521 and exposed in the Kunstmuseum Basel.
The entire space is resonating by the evolving sound cloud: a contemporary musical "comprovisation" created for each performance, performed either live or pre-produced by the sound experience UNCOPPEN SAW.
THE INSTALLATION
This site-specific performance installation adapts to the specific conditions of the exhibition venue.
It consists of a long, rectangular wooden table measuring 12 metres in length and 1.25 metres in width. Along its entire length are wooden benches without backs, offering places to sit on small grey cushions for voluntary and invited participant- performers. These are seated approximately 90 cm apart. The whole table is covered by a 13m long table cloth.
Along the middle of the table, from one end to the other, there is a random assortment of small figurines of various origins, including religious and social figurines. This assortment of small objects, which represent memories, hopes and dreams, is mixed up with white shuttlecocks and small black stone plates bearing imprints of 'navel paintings' created by Nikunja with the live performers prior to the event. Together, they form a corridor of energy along the middle of the table. These objects, linked by their arrangement, create an associative, progressive and uncertain current in the constantly changing light of the video projections installed above the tables. This inspires a laminal state of perception.
Along both long sides of the table, two rows of dishes are set out: empty white plates, wine glasses, and small white napkins. Some places are reserved for the deceased, designated by plates turned face down.
Three video projectors, framed to the length and width of the tables, are suspended above the white table setup and project looped images in HDD format (approx. 1.2 x 4.0 m). These films were created by Nikunja for the project. The video projections are the only light source for the tables, forming three light showers from high above. One of the projections is a real-time projection of the scene and participants, transmitted from an overhead camera installed above the table installation.
THE VIDEO-MOVIES
While the middle projection is a real-time projection of the evolving situation at the table and the performing participants, filmed straight from above the table, the other two projections show videos relating to awareness of death as a process involving seven stages of the soul disconnecting from the body, vital force and mind, and its associations and representations in various cultures, practices and rituals, embedded and superimposed into the composed landscapes and performances.
Nikunja collaborates with the Mauritian performer Mannee (with whom they previously collaborated for the 2015 Venice Biennale: Xanadu, The Bastard's Dream, and a performance piece: The Genesis According to Lilith (2013). Nikunja incorporates images relating to humanity's struggle to overcome wars and mass killing, this strange kind of auto-cannibalism.
The installation concept is based on the triptych, a three-part representation of various beliefs, with the Trinity uniting them all. It also points to the central aspect of Nikunja's Interactive Matter, which focuses on the multilayered pheno,enological fields in between a constellation of two or more oppositions, allowing emergence.
THE TASTE DROPS
These specially created Taste Drops, formulated in collaboration with a chef-patissier, present an artistic composition of tastes for the seven stages after death. These Taste Drops can take the form of pralines, biscuits or small cakes, and are created with a theme-related focus on materiality and texture. This emphasises the content and gives a sculptural and performative expression to each of the proposed fluid stages of consciousness and experience.
Here, the food aspect does not refer to physical nourishment. The creation of the seven tastes has a poetic dimension, carrying artistic content to the sense of taste as sound carries artistic content to the sense of hearing and light to the sense of sight. They refer to the seven subjective stages of transitioning to a bodyless reality after death, as experienced on an undefined timeline dominated by one's soul or spirit.
(These stages are also the basis for the performance creations for the video images in the projections)
These stages also form the basis for the performance creations and video projections.
These stages do not occur within a defined timeline, but are perceived within a common space and may appear in different constellations. Therefore, the order in which participants taste the creations is unimportant and can be chosen freely; what matters is the interplay of the seven tastes. Nikunja emphasises the importance of how the servings are presented to the performer-guests and how the serving as a physical link refers to the outer travel becoming an inner travel physically and in spirit of the participants performances. The performative, ritualistic nature of the entire performance must therefore never be overlooked. The subtlety of the tastes will thus expand and transcend the physical body, like a liberated spirit transcending physical realms.
The laminal states of losing the contours of the body, time and space, as we have learned to perceive them during our lifetime, are reflected in the transmedia installation by the emerging spece of experience in between all interdependant media. No media is representation of the artistic content by itself, only in conjunction with the modulations of the entire media constellation on the 24hour timeline and participatory performative impact.
THE LAST SUPPER PARTITION ( 7 stages)
Resistance-Surrender-Release( life pictures-memory-moments as energy)
Expanding Peace-Descending Light ( the expanding colour-light tunnel towards outer-body reality)
Coming Home ( a non-location you have known all along but forgotten, loss of time and binding condition)
Comprehend Life as a whole – clear perception of the soul promise (original will and motivation to enter incarnation)
Manifestating Attachments – Detachment – Release ( detachment of conditions, pleasures, physicality, space-time conditions)
LoveLight ( Heart-Anahata) as unbound reality (becoming Yourself as existential conscious)
Soul's Light – Abode – (transcendental) Stillness of the Non-Manifest (suspension between the stillness, limits and transcendental will of the soul, her limits want her to be reborn again to be able to transcend her limits of being, but only after a good rest)
THE PAINTING-S
“Jesus in the Tomb” by Hans Holbein the Younger, created in 1521/22, exposed in the Basel Kunstmuseum.
Nikunja created a special painting to be displayed behind the head table on loose canvas stretched over a wooden frame with a metal plate in the middle in an overlayering tryptich constellation. The aaplyed method of Interactive Matter consists of Nikunja creating the painting in dialogue with the rain, wind, sun, cosmical influences during several weeks.
The artist is in contact with the Kunstmuseum Basel to arrange for a real-time digital projection of Hans Holbein's painting, ‘Christ in His Tomb’, to be displayed on the artist's painting. This will create a time-space arch spanning 500 years, as well as physical and virtual spaces, between the painting and the installation site. This projection, which transforms the painting into light, will only be visible during the performance. Alternatively, a pre-produced video loop could be projected onto Nikunja's painting.
Jean Marc Selva, a French cinematographer and director of photography, is invited to compose the 24-hour real-time transmission using specific lighting and camera techniques.
Nikunja has created several paintings that interact with video projection as a light source since 2004, including "Bagdad Sunset Exposed Rotterdam", 2004.
THE PERFORMANCE
During a 24-hour period from noon to noon, the general public and special guests are invited to participate and bring a framed photograph of a deceased friend or relative they would like to honour. This person may have died days, weeks, months or years prior to the event, and the performance installation 'The Last Supper' offers a unique opportunity to honour them in the context of this art event which explores and interrogates the human spirit.
Each participant sitting at the table will display the photograph and will then be served seven pieces of cake (Taste Drops) by a server-performer dressed in simple costume. The sculptural Taste Drops are displayed on a table alongside the main table at the head. The display is arranged in several spiral cascade forms, illumated by small exhibition lamps
Participants can choose from water, milk, red wine or rum to accompany their Taste Drop servings. The performer-participants are then invited to take their time to enjoy the cakes, drinks, sounds and images, and to meditate on their memories and life experiences.
The 24h SERVING PERFORMANCE
This performance is composed of seven invited performing artists who interact with each other and the audience based on the seven stages of passage from life to death. These stages are related to the artists' personal experiences of death, out-of-body experiences, and the physical and spiritual aspects of transformation and transposition.
The performers interact with other media, space and time (the 24-hour cycle, 'Coming Forth by Day'), visitors and performing participants, creating a living, organic link between all the elements of the art, life, death and transformation.
There are no rules, representations or dogmatic ideas, only lived, intuitive reality in relation to the themes of death and memory, and our own individual responses to them.
ikunja will guide a preparatory workshop with each individual performer and the collective. This follows his collaborative works with performers fo 'The Sky Over My House' (Geneva, 2001), Testament of the Wind' ( Amsterdam, 2005), Eagle Flight II ( Reunion Island, 2007), 'Transposed Heads' ( Reunion Island, 2009) an dhis movie projects since.
Participant-Performers may also drip drinks or food onto the white tablecloth and figurines as an offering.
Performer-participants are invited to remain silent and refrain from engaging in conversation during the performance.
No remains of Taste Drops or beverages would remain on the table. The serving performers will offer participants a plate with seven taste-object cakes and will take them away once participants have finished meditating and left the table. The performers will serve beverages according to the participants' choices.
Participants – performers may stay at the table for as long as they wish. They may leave a photograph of a close friend or relative on the table for the duration of the exhibition or take it home. They may also leave a flower or anything else they feel is appropriate beside the photograph. Participants should remain silent during their observations. Even in groups, it is better to stay silent. The sound compositions, video creations and paintings are all integral parts of the installation, interacting and fusing to create the transmedia experience.
THE EXHIBITION PLACE
The performance installation is accessible during the exhibition's opening hours. It communicates through the traces left by participants and its constant presence reveals the artwork's content. It may be performed at a specific art event or exhibition venue. There should be one or several 24-hour cycles, from noon to noon. 'The Last Supper' can be displayed as part of an event such as 'The Nights of Art', an art festival, or as a standalone exhibition in an institutional venue, where the complex overall context can be more effectively explored. The juxtaposition/dialogue between the installation and performance spaces opens up an additional dimension of perception between presence and absence (of performers and the dead), offering a moment of existential truth.
The installation/performance will evolve with each exhibition venue. In addition to pictures of participants, Nikunja will create video performances in landscapes and cities, incorporating local characters; these reflect the art, culture and habits of the exhibition venue in relation to the perception of death.
These video performances will be edited into the video installation, meaning that the exhibition spaces influence the form and content of the installation, constantly expanding it as an interface between performers/participants, place, culture and spiritual space. The installation will weave together presence and absence, developing a model space that relates cultural spaces to the web of creative traces of the living and the dead, which are never separated. This creates an intercommunicative arch between cultures and people of all origins.
Nikunja wants to use The Last Supper to promote a new social link between living beings and the transcendent world of the dead. The work offers a public memorial for deceased individuals who have contributed to today's social and cultural reality, in this specific place and moment in history. Thus, The Last Supper manifests as a link between the individual's intimate conscience and the public's social conscience. Above all, a consciousness enlarged by genuine spirituality is formed; in touch with the experience of death, every Wo-Man faces evenly the common mystery: for as every Wo- Man was born, every Wo-Man will die.
COLABORATIONS
SOUND CLOUD BY UNCOPPEN SAW
MANNEE (MAU), ALAIN PERRET ( CH),
MATHIEU SYLVESTRE (F), NIKUNJA (CH/F)
https://uncoppensaw.bandcamp.com/
DIGITAL MOVIE REAL TIME TRANSMISSION
JEAN MARC SELVA (F)
https://www.jeanmarcselva.com/
CONCEPT- ARTISTIC DIRECTION
NIKUNJA
http://nikunja.net/
THE PUBLICATIONS
We will create documentation materials as photos and videos of the different places of
exhibitions by including
texts / interviews by the curators, the artists and other personalities, who will open new aspects and understanding of the project, based on the real experience of the installation-performance of this progressive project.
Nikunja, 2016/2026 c/ adapg, Paris 2016/2026
P A R T I C I P A T I O N F O R M
CLICK HERE
INTERACTIVE MATTER
VIDEO=FOLIO
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EN FRANCAIS ICI 
