The position of a contemporary artist working at the intersection of art and anthropology — a listener, translator, and transcultural observer — is a fragile one. It feels like walking on unsteady planks above a deep abyss, where every step requires balance, humility, and awareness. Even the English language, which I use to communicate with my cultural interlocutors, is not native — neither to me nor to them. Choosing the right words, gestures, and meanings becomes a subtle but essential part of my artistic practice. Through this continuous act of linguistic and cultural translation, I begin to understand how fragile — and profound — the process of understanding itself can be.
I now feel the need to reconsider my approach — to rethink not only what I am doing, but how and why my artistic practice engages with cultural and sacred sites. This reflection also touches on my methodology, which has been based on embodied observation, site-responsive movement, and sensory mapping. Through movement, I explore the cultural landscape as a living field of relations — translating its atmosphere through gesture, breath, and presence (Pink, 2009; Ingold, 2011). My body becomes both a tool and a witness, moving intuitively through spaces to sense and translate what is often invisible. I once described this process as poetic movement or poetic ritual, a way of listening to a place through movement.
But after my visit to a Hindu temple yesterday, I experienced a change in perception. The act no longer feels like ritual or research alone — it now reveals itself as poetic prayer. It is no longer just about understanding or representing; it is about entering a quiet dialogue with the sacred, where methodology and spirituality begin to meet.
Mircea Eliade (1959) describes ritual as a symbolic action that reenacts sacred myths to connect with the divine realm, transforming individuals and restoring cosmic order. My actions, however, exist in between — somewhere between prayer and ritual, between inner devotion and embodied expression. This is a fragile space that requires awareness and care. The word ritual practice can sound unsettling to some people I meet, perhaps because it suggests intrusion into something sacred. Methodologically, I have learned to move with sensitivity — to listen before acting, to let the site speak before I respond. I now call my process a ritual dance of prayer — a way of connecting body and place through movement, reverence, and reciprocity (Haseman, 2006).
For Eliade (1959), prayer is the fundamental act through which humans communicate with the sacred. This idea resonates with how I understand my work — as both an act of art-making and a form of embodied ethnography. Through prayerful movement, I engage in what could be described as kinesthetic fieldwork (Sklar, 2000), where the body becomes a way of thinking and knowing.
Yesterday’s encounter made this clearer. I entered a small building next to the temple and asked if I could speak with someone about the rituals performed there. The woman I spoke to looked me over from head to toe and said firmly:
“We pray here. We do not perform rituals.”
Her words marked a boundary — between what is sacred and what can be studied. Yet, after a moment, she invited me to wait for members of the temple committee. Two middle-aged men arrived, covered in the dust of the day. Our conversation was calm and open. I explained that I study how cultures can learn from one another through understanding and shared presence. They listened carefully, asked which other temples I had contacted, and where I planned to perform. Perhaps the question was to understand how deeply I intended to engage. Once I explained that my purpose was dialogue, not imitation, the tension softened. They gave me their contact details and encouraged me to stay in touch.
I forgot to mention that I was at the Arulmigu Balathandayuthapani Temple, also called the Waterfall Hilltop Temple, in George Town, Penang. It is a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Murugan and is known as the largest temple outside India built in his honour. The temple stands high on a hill, and to reach it, one must climb more than 500 steps surrounded by trees and smaller shrines.
During the Thaipusam festival, thousands of devotees walk from Lorong Kulit to the temple, carrying milk pots or the heavy Vel Kavadis as offerings to Lord Murugan. The tall tower at the entrance rises above the trees like a call to the sky. Climbing the steps, I felt that every movement of the body — every breath, every pause — became part of the prayer itself.
At that point, I paused to reflect on what culture truly means. Edward T. Hall (1976) described culture as a system of inherited, symbolic conceptions that shape how people communicate and interact — invisible but powerful. He compared it to the ocean — a vast space that surrounds us completely, though we rarely notice it. Ward Goodenough (1957) wrote that a society’s culture is whatever one must know or believe in order to act acceptably among its members. Both ideas show culture as a shared and often unseen knowledge — the architecture of belonging.
Returning to my meeting with the temple representatives, I now see their questions differently. They were not defensive, but protective — a way to safeguard the sacred. Once they understood my sincerity, the conversation opened.
After our talk, I slowly climbed the long staircase to the temple. Step by step, I felt a shift from conversation to contemplation — from outer observation to inner stillness. I made sketches of the sculptures, watched the movements of people in prayer, the wind playing with the flags, the rhythm of silence and offering. I sat for a long time, thinking about why I wish to perform there — not to present, but to be present; not to show a ritual, but to listen to it.
By the end of the week, my proposal will be ready. Yet perhaps the proposal itself is not the goal. What matters more is this realization:
that I am walking along a narrow bridge between languages and faiths,
where every gesture becomes translation,
and every movement — a form of prayer.
References
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Eliade, M. (1959). The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
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Goodenough, W. H. (1957). Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics. In P. L. Garvin (Ed.), Report of the Seventh Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study (pp. 167–173). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
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Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor Books.
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Haseman, B. (2006). A Manifesto for Performative Research. Media International Australia, 118(1), 98–106.
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Ingold, T. (2011). Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge.
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Pink, S. (2009). Doing Sensory Ethnography. London: Sage.
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Sklar, D. (2000). Reperformance Ethnography: Embodied Theories of Dance. Dance Research Journal, 32(1), 70–83.