Spaces of Transcendence
2022Moving Image,
Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney,
Ikon Gallery, UK
Filmed in sites of ritual in Pakistan, Spaces of Transcendence (2022) is a story of environments, characters and gestures. Here a secret language and its repetition is deployed in accessing a space of transcendence where the needs of marginalised voices are fulfilled. Occupying centre ground, and recognised as vehicles of access to another realm or to the divine, are the Fakir/Yogi (Brides of God), the Khawaja Sara (a Transgender person) and the Feminine Male (distinct from a Khawaja Sara). Shrines/cemeteries, alams (pennon/flags), bathing rituals, hand and body movements and the dying of cloth and its fibres are the backdrop for this transformative magic.
