Duration - 2hours 14minutes
Lemon Trees Die In Cold Rooms explores the erasure of individuality beneath societal standards of perfection. The performance becomes a confrontation with the tension between control and surrender, discipline and rebellion. The blindfold symbolizes the imposition of expectations — shaping, restricting, and blinding. As Aparna writes with her non-dominant hand, each mark becomes a futile attempt to meet standards, highlighting the struggle to align with an idealized image.
The act of writing transforms into a metaphor for identity reduced to appearances, with each stroke representing the exhaustion of striving for perfection. The difficulty of using her non-dominant hand emphasizes the impossibility of conforming to unattainable ideals.
The performance ultimately asks: What remains of us when we become vessels for expectations? What is lost when we trade authenticity for approval? As the ink accumulates, the chaos of overlapping marks speaks to the violence of internalized ideals and the breakdown of control, exposing the fragility and futility of perfection.