MOKITA, 2017
Duration 7 hours
HIllscene Live Festival
12th November 2017
Birdsland Reserve
Belgrave Heights,
Victoria
Co-devised by Devika Bilimoria, Luna Mrozik Gawler and Nithya Iyer, L&NDLESS explores the application of critical theory to embodied practices. Sound by Amias Hanley, and supported by Nardine Keriakous.
A durational performance, a ritual, and an invitation, MOKITA is mourning in motion. Exploring grief, and the complex emotions arising from, but not limited to, environmental collapse, Mokita is a participatory, immersive and meditative experience where attendees are invited to submit their grieving to the space and to share in the catharsis.
A Kilivila word from Papua New Guinea, meaning ‘the truth we all know, and have agreed not to talk about,’ MOKITA is a performance work that seeks to create a space dedicated to grieving, and asks how we maintain our humanity amongst a time of rapid destruction and change.
MOKITA aims to create a secular contemporary ritual space that answers this need. It exists as a salve for those unable to process or release their own sense of grief; whether it arises from situations commonly associated with mourning, such as a death, or is a result of any kind of change, or ongoing anxiety.
On the day of this seven hour ritual, participants were invited to confidentially offer their grief into the performance space to be carried through a meditative performative process. The handwritten grief was individually placed in native seed mottled clay by participants, and at the conclusion of the ritual, was planted in the soil surrounding Birdlands Reserve in Belgrave Heights.
