Smita Sen

Surrender is an act of yielding to the power of another; of relinquishing oneself fully and completely. At its most beautiful and most turbulent, palliative care is an act of surrender for both the patient and the caregiver. Negotiating the competing qualities of this sacred bond, of this sacred surrender between caregiver and patient, artist Smita Sen and violinist Trina Basu co-create an evening-length performance to honor the complexities of palliative caregiving. In developing this work, Sen and Basu draw from their respective experiences; Sen from her experience as a palliative caregiver, and Basu from her work as a music therapist. Weaving together Indian classical music, creative improvisation, and movement frameworks engaging breath, contraction, and release, Sen and Basu offer a performance rooted in surrendering to the affection, fear, hope, and endurance of palliative care. 

Music by Trina Basu 
Choreography by Smita Sen 
Shot and edited by Adrien Tillmann 

Performed and developed at Recess (Brooklyn, NY) in 2021. Premiered and filmed in Sen’s installation, The Manipura Sanctum.

About the Artist:

Smita Sen is an artist working with sculpture, dance-based performance, and advanced technology to research how the body internalizes its environment and significant life events. Sen has had solo exhibitions at Recess (2021), the Brooklyn Public Library (2022), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (2024-25), among others. Her work has been shown at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Frost Art Museum, the New World Center, the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Knockdown Center, and Socrates Sculpture Park, and has been featured in the NYTimes, Frieze, The Observer, and Dance Magazine. Sen has been awarded support from institutions including NEW INC, the New Museum’s incubator; Recess; Oolite Arts; and the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. She is a recipient of the Dance Miami Choreographers Award (2023 & 2024), the Oolite Ellies Creator Award (2022), and the Instigator Fellowship from NYU ITP Camp (2018). An educator, Sen believes in the power of a collaborative classroom and has taught and designed the Emerging Media program at Choate Rosemary Hall; taught introductory and advanced design technology classes at the Parsons School of Design, The New School; and built the STEAM curriculum for the Makers Lab program at KLA Academy. She leads Miami-based arts education nonprofit, the Manipura Care Network. Sen is a graduate of Columbia University (2016). She is based in Miami, Florida and New York City.

Artist Statement:

Working with sculpture, advanced technology, and performance, I investigate in my practice the dynamic relationship between the body and memory. I study how the human body becomes a living document, storing tension, movement patterns, and emotion over the course of a lifetime. Having served as a palliative caregiver in my family, I further examine the way the body is transformed through illness, grief, and interdependence, carrying the compounded memories of each. In my research, I draw from the theory and praxis of narrative medicine, centering the personal voice in medical healing processes, from diagnostic inquiry through holistic care. In my artistic production, I lean heavily on my background in dance and 3D graphics as I create works that explore the intimacies of the body and its ongoing transformations. In my performance works, I weave together visceral movement with operatic vocalizations, Graham technique, and yoga nidra to excavate embodied memories. In my sculpture practice, I use 3D modeling software, antique scientific drafting methods, and South Asian theology, iconography, and ceremony in my attempt to visualize internal landscapes. Interrogating the relationships between contemporary Western medicine and South Asian traditional medicine, I attempt to reimagine sites of care and to examine the ways Hindu and Buddhist spiritual architecture can both honor and heal the body in motion. My artwork and research is ultimately an attempt to understand the resilience and malleability of the body, and to find ways to continuously support its inner healing mechanisms.