To be burned, buried or released into moving water is an ongoing project documenting the mala, or garlands that I thread and capture. The ‘mala’ encompasses the garland, necklace and prayer bead. It’s used as a symbol of celebration or mourning. It is a circle, a beginning meeting an end. A portal. Through this project I explore mala-making as ritual, using the scanner bed as the site of assembly and capture. A physical and permanent expression of spiritual practice.

The mala exists as a cross-cultural, multi-faith, multi-material object. From stone and seed prayer beads, to floral garlands, to gold and silver necklaces. The mala can be worn, held and used as a tool, or placed at a site of mourning. The ephemeral mala is often made from homegrown plants and flowers, by the women of the household. There is ritual and intent to its threading, and as always the maker is responsible for the charge an object is given. The final stage of ritual practice is a moment of release, any spirited material must be ‘burned, buried or released into moving water’. What is created ceremoniously, must be destroyed ceremoniously. Scanning allows the ephemeral to be immortalised in great detail, and acts as a site, the capture of the mala becoming an important moment in the ritual.

As a descendent of Fiji Girmit, agriculture and organic materials hold a particular significance, as does the labour of our hands and bodies. Mala-making is an exercise of ancestral muscle memory, a practice that is less and less common as time passes. Exploring the divine potential of the seed and its fruit, I sow them into my works as my ancestors did into the land, except this time with autonomy, in the hopes of creating small portals for reflection and healing. Threading becomes the physical embodiment of a karmic time loop, brought to close through the act of making.

‘for Liv’
mala of fuchsia triphylla, threaded for the passing of a friend’s loved one
scanned and printed on photographic paper, 2020