Ritual
From the moment I step off the flight at Denpasar, I step into magic. The floral aroma of frangipani immerses me, and time begins to slow down. I follow in tow, taking one careful step in front of the other, inching my way into the rising sun greeting me outside. Sometimes you just know when a place feels like spiritual home. Many have known this. Seekers, escapists and tourists have been flooding to Indonesia for years. One could get lost in her seductive magic, as she pulls you into a slow dance. Like the human condition incarnate, Indonesia is complex. She contains all of it; sacred and profane with the most severe atrocities and the most delicate beauty. She is a state of wise contradiction. For the first time in my life, I experience a full sense of sublimation; the transformation of my sexual energy into a holy new kind of practice. To be initiated into this state of creative ecstasy, I’ve catapulted myself into the future and halfway around the globe. I find it fascinating how certain places can be more familiar culturally and have more historic knowledge but generate a feeling of dissonance. I experienced this returning to my birthplace of Moscow as a teenager and how foreign it felt.
During my time in Java, I am given the task of creating my own symbols. My body is already covered in them; dots and lines, eyes and bees, snakes, feathers, moths and powerful plants. I return to the question of what is the difference between a symbol and representation? I want to consult Barthes and the other linguists, but perhaps it is something I already kind of know and sense. Every place has its exotica and familiarities. I begin to unwind the braid of mimesis and alterity, one strand at a time through fragments of memories, written ephemera, and dream induced prophecy. I begin to mine and map my own experiences as this ancient land of magic leads the way.
I think about this praxis, a word that comes from the ancient Greek πρᾶξις. This is the way that we enact or realize theory. In real time, in space, in the body. Praxis is the customs and rituals we generate, sometimes influenced by conceptual ideas and sometimes driving them. The space of praxis defies hierarchy.
The concept of liminality derives from a Latin word limen meaning threshold. In the early twentieth century, Dutch Anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep coined this term in describing the second and third parts of a transformative ritual, often referring to an altered state. The suspended sense of time and place induced as a result of this transition. The liminal stage is the phase where we let go of the past and embrace the new person we are becoming, suspending ourselves at the point of arrival. Later, another anthropologist Victor Turner further explored the concept of the liminal in spaces of cultural ritual.
Ritual
From the moment I step off the flight at Denpasar, I step into magic. The floral aroma of frangipani immerses me, and time begins to slow down. I follow in tow, taking one careful step in front of the other, inching my way into the rising sun greeting me outside. Sometimes you just know when a place feels like spiritual home. Many have known this. Seekers, escapists and tourists have been flooding to Indonesia for years. One could get lost in her seductive magic, as she pulls you into a slow dance. Like the human condition incarnate, Indonesia is complex. She contains all of it; sacred and profane with the most severe atrocities and the most delicate beauty. She is a state of wise contradiction. For the first time in my life, I experience a full sense of sublimation; the transformation of my sexual energy into a holy new kind of practice. To be initiated into this state of creative ecstasy, I’ve catapulted myself into the future and halfway around the globe. I find it fascinating how certain places can be more familiar culturally and have more historic knowledge but generate a feeling of dissonance. I experienced this returning to my birthplace of Moscow as a teenager and how foreign it felt.
During my time in Java, I am given the task of creating my own symbols. My body is already covered in them; dots and lines, eyes and bees, snakes, feathers, moths and powerful plants. I return to the question of what is the difference between a symbol and representation? I want to consult Barthes and the other linguists, but perhaps it is something I already kind of know and sense. Every place has its exotica and familiarities. I begin to unwind the braid of mimesis and alterity, one strand at a time through fragments of memories, written ephemera, and dream induced prophecy. I begin to mine and map my own experiences as this ancient land of magic leads the way.
I think about this praxis, a word that comes from the ancient Greek πρᾶξις. This is the way that we enact or realize theory. In real time, in space, in the body. Praxis is the customs and rituals we generate, sometimes influenced by conceptual ideas and sometimes driving them. The space of praxis defies hierarchy.
The concept of liminality derives from a Latin word limen meaning threshold. In the early twentieth century, Dutch Anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep coined this term in describing the second and third parts of a transformative ritual, often referring to an altered state. The suspended sense of time and place induced as a result of this transition. The liminal stage is the phase where we let go of the past and embrace the new person we are becoming, suspending ourselves at the point of arrival. Later, another anthropologist Victor Turner further explored the concept of the liminal in spaces of cultural ritual.
EPB
EPB is a writer, visual artist, performer & researcher who plays in the space between theory and practice. In her writing, she parallels her observations of the art world with academic discourse and the politics of sex work.