Mel O’Callaghan – whose work could be discovered during the Nuit Blanche 2016 (under the artistic direction of Palais de Tokyo) and at Palais de Tokyo during DO DISTURB 2, in April 2016, is here continuing her reflections about ritual as a form of expression of the human condition, and the processes of selftransformation which emerge from the tireless repetition of the same actions.

For her solo show at Palais de Tokyo, Mel O’Callaghan (born in Sydney in 1975, lives in Paris) went to North East Borneo so as to attend the traditional harvesting of birds’ nests, a particularly dangerous ritual, performed twice a year by the Orang Sungai people, at a height of over 120 meters – going up to the summit of Simud Putih, or the “white cave” of Gomantong. Combining sculpture, performance and video, Dangerous on-the-way focuses more specifically on the ekstasis this ritual induces, that physical and mental state described in Greek philosophy as being “outside oneself”.

Winner of the SAM Prize for contemporary art 2015