Mel O'Callaghan: Dangerous on-the-way, 2016
2 channel HD colour video with surround sound
32:9, 32 minutes 5 seconds
O'Callaghan documents the dangerous ritual of traditional harvesting of birds’ nests, performed twice a year by the Orang Sungai people in Simud Putih, or the “white cave” of Gomantong, North East Borneo, focusing more specifically on the ekstasis this ritual induces, that physical and mental state described in Greek philosophy as being “outside oneself”.
Exhibited Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2017
Images courtesy the artist and Galerie Allen, Paris