Land Rites

Ritual costumes made by land spirits:  As a member of makers’ collective RARA, I have been organising a series of public workshops that are theoretically informed and involve making and social actions. Land Rites is one of these workshops. It is to remind the emotional values and social meanings of land. Exploring the land not as an object that can be monetised and abused for profits but as a subject of spiritual power and political voices, the workshop engaged the land with personal memories and spiritual exchange to overcome its reduced value as a ‘property’. Gathering around Hackney Marsh East London, workshop participants were encouraged to communicate with the land and to produce ritualistic costumes based on that interaction. The images shown here is one of mine. The experience of watching the land, absorbing its sound and smells blankly, drawing my reflection on a big piece of fabric, wearing it on and wondering around in disguise was meditational yet sensuous one that I would like to explore further.

* As part of the alternative learning through making platform, RARA School programme