SKIN.BODIES I

two-channel video installation 
17:26 min 
2024 

SKIN.BODIES I is the first chapter of a triptych investigating systemic violence and its inscription on the body. In this two-channel video installation, Edith Saldanha examines how institutional structures enact violence, shaping bodies as sites of both oppression and resistance.
Through a sequence of nine scenes, the work navigates themes of self-reflection, assimilation, and epidermalization, culminating in a state of ambiguous redemption. Here, the body remains material—an inhuman object marked by institutional constraints. The piece critically engages with the mechanisms through which bodies are disciplined, molded, and coerced into assimilation as a survival strategy within systems that perpetuate social and economic inequality.

Focusing on skin and its materiality, SKIN.BODIES I explores its dual function: as a surface where violence leaves its trace and as a threshold for transformation. Skin is a site of convergence—where personal and collective memory intertwine, where power structures inscribe their hierarchies, and where subjectivity is simultaneously erased and reclaimed. By foregrounding texture and tactility, the work challenges the notion of the body as a fixed entity, instead proposing it as a fluid space of negotiation, resistance, and potential change.

Interrogating the paradox of transformation within violent systems, SKIN.BODIES I questions whether true change can emerge from structures that demand assimilation. It resists a transactional logic of exchange, suggesting instead that transformation—like a gift—exists beyond immediate reciprocity. In doing so, the work seeks to rupture dominant narratives, imagining new modes of being that exist outside the constraints of economic and institutional imperative.








concept+creative direction+performance+voice over: 
Edith Saldanha
director: Ilina Bhatia
DOP: Tara Zulfikar
1. AD: Adriana Guevara
scenography: Toni Ofner
costume: Jaqueline Koch, Toni Ofner
choreography: Rotem Weissman
text: Dhruv Bhatia, Ang Xu
music: Matthias Jakisic
sound engineering: Johann Meis
editing: Vivian Bausch, Ilina Bhatia
production: Toni Ofner, Edith Saldanha
supported by Goethe-Institut München, Kulturfonds Stadt München, Stadt Salzburg