Crossing Creative Encounters at Thresholds as Pulse of Suburban and Urban Spaces: Diaspora Performing Material Practice of Culture

Abstract

Material practices of cultural rituals continue to be performed by the diaspora, initiating relational connections in places they have settled. The ritual of Kolam is a drawing on the ground undertaken by Tamil women in South India and Sri Lanka to mark the threshold. Groups of women from the diaspora in Australia and Singapore carry out the traditional Kolam in public spaces during auspicious days. Observations of performative acts of place making served to develop the methodology for a contemporary practice. As a member of the Tamil diaspora, the author (re)imagines the performance of the traditional ritual to activate connections relevant for the wider communities living in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. The paper describes how tacit knowledge, materials, and processes are adapted for the broader society. The ethics of the traditional practice and the agencies harnessed upon performing become integrated into contemporary creative methods of participatory activity. Passersby using common paths and residents in a social housing complex created a series of visual drawings on bark using clay and natural materials. Ground installations of the assembled drawings conveyed stories through material dialogue. The less visible spaces and communities were revealed as part of the pulse of the suburban rhythms of movement. The paper demonstrates the potential significance of performing the cultural practices of the diaspora through collective acts of place making that strengthens social bonds not only for the diasporic group but also for society at large.

1. Introduction

The performance of rituals by the diaspora can serve as ‘a “cultural prism” to shed new light on processes of change and continuity in migration’ to reveal ‘relatedness and relations to place that are not always apparent or explicated in daily life’ (Pedersen and Rytter 2018, pp. 2604–5). The community expresses the relationship with society and surroundings through creative place making where public spaces provide a venue for those expressions (Webb 2014). The ritual drawing of Tamil women known as Kolam continues to be performed by the diaspora away from the places of origin of the practice in South India and Sri Lanka. These gestures, through material, activate social relations that bring proximity to transnational connections. Simultaneously, members of the diaspora engage with the local Tamil communities where they live.

Hindu ritual practice has been described ‘as a type of performance that is inherently constructive and strategic, producing specific types of meaning and values through particular strategies’ (Pintchman 2007, p. 4). Practitioners as agents ‘may function to produce, reproduce, transform, resist, or even defy’ familiar forms known to the larger community (Pintchman 2007, p. 5). The Kolam created on the ground using rice flour is a dialogue with the divine, a form of prayer to host the goddess Lakshmi as well as the Earth goddess Bhudevi (V. R. Nagarajan 1998; V. Nagarajan 2018) or Bhumi mother. The drawing takes the form of abstract, pictorial, or geometric designs learnt from childhood through regular practice with elders in the family. They serve as signifiers of a threshold that demarcate space, recognizing the transition from one to the other upon crossing. The religious scholar, Nagarajan, describes the spatial threshold as ‘a powerful metaphor in Indian secular and sacred life, a charged location’ separating ‘ritually pure and impure or between auspicious and inauspicious places’ (V. R. Nagarajan 2007, p. 96). Threshold sites in public spaces used by the community, and entrances to homes that are often at junctures of public and private domains, become locations for the creative acts. The material, gestural, spatial, social, and devotional dialogue of the traditional Kolam has the intrinsic characteristics of ritual intent and meaning in its performance to convey to the community what is happening. The visual elements of design as material traces inform the community of the occasion being marked, its transient nature leading to the gradual fading and merging of the design with the ground through movement of people and the interaction of surrounding elements, keeping the site activated. The presence of established and recent Tamil migrant communities in Singapore and Australia provided the opportunity to closely examine how the ritual of Kolam has continued to be practiced in public spaces where they have settled to facilitate social engagement. Furthermore, witnessing the practices became important in the development of the (re)imagined practice. The performance activates a relational discourse on meaning-making by adopting strategies of practice relevant to the practitioner whilst maintaining the integrity of the key values embedded in the traditional Kolam.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Tamil Women Practicing the Ritual of Kolam in Public Spaces

Women practitioners from the Tamil diaspora in Australia and Singapore were observed whilst carrying out the Kolam practice in public spaces during auspicious days within the Hindu calendar. Communities gather to mark the harvest festival of Pongal and the festival of lights, namely Deepavali. The observations of the collective creations of Kolam drawing occurred as encounters in public spaces identified as threshold sites for creations by the practitioners. Some were publicized as events whilst others were chance encounters. The observations focused on the relational dialogue intrinsic to the ritual practice. The material properties, their ephemeral traces, tools, the design, the body in performance, process, sensory experience of the encounter, other gestural acts pertinent to the drawing ritual, and spatial features of the site provided insight into the dialogical and dynamic nature of the practice. They were dictated by agencies harnessed during creation. The observation of the collective creations through gestural actions using material was captured through photography and documentation of the experience of witnessing the performative dialogue. Witnessing as methodology (Reed-Danahay 2016) was applied to the Kolam ritual. This parallels how Kolam is encountered and experienced in the communities of origin (Dohmen 2004; V. R. Nagarajan 1998; V. Nagarajan 2018).

2.2. (Re)imagined Threshold Crossing as Dialogical Encounters

The Tamil diaspora performing the traditional material practice of threshold drawing informed how the contemporary practice was (re)imagined using materials relevant to the artist as well as the local community engaged in the collective activity in Australia. Clay and natural flora as materials had ephemeral properties that showed transformative states through traces. Furthermore, they had an association to land that paralleled the use of rice harvested from land in the case of the South Asian traditional practice. Transitional spaces in the inner-city suburb of Brunswick in Melbourne, Australia, were explored as threshold sites for creative interventions to engage the local community through (re)imagined contemporary art encounters, Threshold Crossings. The project was carried out as an artist–researcher in residence at RMIT PlaceLab Brunswick, a newly established community-engaged initiative of the university. Passersby at the sites of activation and residents of a social housing complex in the suburb of Brunswick were the participants involved in the project.

Clay was used as a medium for painting, its transformative states allowing a gradual erosion to occur over time. The drawings were made on paper or eucalyptus bark coated with a clay slip. Clay was sourced from Merri-bek shire, the location of the creative activity, and from Nillumbik shire, the artist’s place of practice. Clay from southwest of Melbourne sourced during a visit prior to pandemic restrictions provided a connection to the regional area of Victoria. The drawings were created using twigs as tools for application, and natural pigments in the clay slip provided color. The participants were asked to create messages through pictorial and abstract drawings, responding to ‘what is a space that is central to your sense of community’, ‘what gives it significance’ and ‘what is the message you want to convey within the drawing as a way of crossing into that space’ to mark the threshold entrance. These questions were loosely framed to initiate conversations and thus to convey a message that is an integral feature of the traditional Kolam. Photographs captured the activity and of the completed drawings on the bark. Important aspects of the conversation, their moods, gestures of the body, material interactions, and spatial elements relevant to the drawing activity were documented.

Threshold spaces became sites for the assembly of the drawings on the bark and flora on the ground. The works became interlinked as a collective message to convey the marking of a space as an experiential encounter of a crossing and of an activity that had taken place. The material traces remained as a signifier of a threshold. The many threshold sites that became activated as part of the overall project were captured as a pictorial map on the glass wall of RMIT Placelab. It adopted the features of the Kolam drawing that could be viewed by passersby.

3. Results

3.1. Kolam in Public Spaces as Creative Place Making by Tamil Community in Singapore

Singapore has a significant Tamil population consisting of early migrants from South India and Sri Lanka who arrived at the time of colonization and recent migrants from around the globe. They form one of the three main ethnic groups that make up the nation. The majority of Tamils living in Singapore are Hindus and Tamil is one of the official languages, evident in signage and documents. Cultural practices are expressed through the celebration of festivals in homes, in public spaces such as temples during worship, and in retail spaces where items for personal, devotional, and domestic use are sold.

The harvest festival of Pongal is a time when Kolam drawings are seen in their abundance in Singapore. It was an opportunity to witness the performance of drawings created collectively in public spaces through chance encounters and as community events. Furthermore, it demonstrated how threshold spaces were determined within public spaces. The performance of rituals is part of the domestic lives of Tamil women often not on obvious display to catch the gaze of the broader public in a formal manner or even the members of the household.

Retail stores in the Indian commercial quarter of Singapore became sites for Kolam creations in a collective manner. Women associated with one store used a common public passageway directly opposite the store to create the ritual drawing (Figure 1). It may have appeared an unconventional site when considered from a Euro-American and risk-averse perspective. The mere fact that the entrance intersected with a passageway for the public was the feature that lent itself as a signifier of a threshold, a ‘charged location’ to mark the site on this auspicious occasion. It enabled passersby to slow down, to notice, and pay reverence.

The wearing of vividly colored Saris that were richly designed, the adornment of bangles, and flowers in the hair reflected the festive nature of the occasion. The women, who were barefoot, squatted or sat on the raised footpath in order to bring their bodies close to the ground. They drew a communal Kolam, using their fingers to deliver the rice flour mixed with vivid pigments. Casual conversations occurred during the creative process. The initial outline drawn using cloth dipped in rice flour slurry guided the development of the floral motif. The materials and items used in the creation of the Kolam were present in proximity for the women to readily access. Witnesses observing the practice could draw a relationship between the materials and how they were being used in the Kolam being drawn. A container with rice flour slurry and a rag were on the ground with an array of pigments in containers, an active site of creation. In addition to the ephemeral floral Kolam being created, there was a modern version of the Kolam applied as an adhesive sticker onto the floor to indicate the celebration. An ephemeral Kolam drawn earlier showed a recognizable pictorial form of Pongal Kolam. It represented a decorative clay pot (Figure 2) in which rice is boiled for harvest celebration.

A group gathered to celebrate in front of another store. Rice was cooked in a clay pot to serve to the community (Figure 3) as a gesture of harvest. An act of offering on a banana leaf was made alongside. These devotional and social activities to celebrate the auspicious day occurred in proximity to a busy road and foot traffic, the senses absorbing the many sounds and activities of the urban surrounding, simultaneously.

New adhesive stickers of Kolam designs to replace the old and traces of ephemeral Kolam drawings during Pongal were visible across public spaces in the predominantly Tamil commercial sector of Singapore. Activities associated with the devotional, cultural and domestic domains became integrated as part of marking the Pongal festival in public spaces that included the ritual of Kolam. The occasion was shared with the Tamil community as well as with other ethnic communities in Singapore who often participate in aspects of the celebration.

3.2. Transformation of Public Spaces by Tamil Community in Australia on Auspicious Days

Tamil communities as part of the larger South Asian diaspora also gather in public spaces across various states in Australia to enact Kolam drawings on auspicious occasions. A gathering of the Tamil community occurred in the Robelle Domain Parklands in Springfield, a suburb of Ipswich in Queensland, to celebrate Pongal in 2023. The floor of the stage became the threshold site of an evolving performance of Kolam drawings made by groups of women. They took different positions across the vast space. Their performative bodies wearing vivid textiles, and bright pigments used in the rice flour to create the Kolam designs were visible from a distance (Figure 4). The stage was at the boundary of a parkland, providing a ritual platform to observe the performative creative acts as the array of elaborate Kolam designs slowly evolved.

The women, spanning different generations, sat or bent their bodies close to the ground to perform the drawing. The simultaneous actions of their hands with bodies in motion allowed different sections of the drawing to gradually take shape (Figure 5). Their regular practice enabled a fluidity of performance. Only minimal instructions on the sequence were needed to be exchanged between the participants. The women spoke of celebratory activities at home, food preparations, visiting the community, and involvement of their children, friends, or extended family on the day. Sounds of collaborative activity that conveyed a festive atmosphere, ambient sounds of the surroundings, filled the space. Traditional rituals were a ‘powerful source of bonding with other Tamils in the local area who shared knowledge and experience’ (Jones 2016, p. 64), which was evident in this collective marking of Pongal at Robelle Domain Parklands through Kolam drawings.

A friendly competition was held to select the best Kolam drawing. Formal events followed, through gestures of devotional Puja and other rituals. The geometric and pictorial Kolam drawings remained as silent signifiers of the performative acts marking the threshold on this auspicious day for the Tamil community.

Deepavali, the festival of lights, is also a significant festival marked by the South Asian community across the globe. A large community event was organized by the Tamil community in Perth in 2018 to mark the occasion through the creation of a large Kolam drawing. The event allowed an elaborate design, as shown in Figure 6, to unfold over 12 h in a public space within the city center. It commenced in the morning and continued until nighttime with many from the local South Asian as well as wider community invited to participate in the performative ritual drawing. The design spanned the open courtyard of the cultural center serving as a threshold space separating the buildings that had many floors. Figure 6 (left and middle) shows the chalk outline drawn on the paved ground with symbolic representations of fauna of the land and ocean in both South Asia and Australia as well as of flora. It captured the merging of the two regions relevant to the diaspora. The design adopted elements of the traditional Kolam design as well as contemporary graphic designs to reflect the spectrum of expressions of the diaspora. Community participants from both the diaspora and broader public, including children, filled the designs using vividly colored rice. The activities were guided by advanced practitioners. The drawing evolved with the passing of the day. The fullness of the story, told through performative bodies, was most appreciated when viewed from a height. As night fell, a large gathering of the public participated by lighting lamps around the Kolam to mark Deepavali (Figure 6 right), the drawing constantly being transformed throughout the day as an experiential encounter.

3.3. Threshold Crossing as a (Re)imagined Practice of Place Making in Suburban Melbourne

Performative enactments of the traditional Kolam carried out in public spaces on auspicious days demonstrated how the diaspora take agency to transform threshold spaces. Material expressions serve as cultural place making. The Kolam ritual was (re)imagined into a threshold encounter within a contemporary art practice. Here, it broadens the dialogue to include a wider community beyond the diaspora. It examines the many transformative states of the spatial, social, and material initiated upon the performance of the (re)imagined drawing. Transformative states as a human experience are not only encountered by migrants but also by wider society who have faced ‘crossings’ within their lives. Intrinsic characteristics of the traditional ritual informed the critical elements integrated into the contemporary (re)imagined construct in the clay and materials of the surroundings.

The project Threshold Crossings was undertaken as an artist–researcher in residence at RMIT PlaceLab Brunswick in Melbourne, Australia, a newly established community-engaged initiative of the university. Transitional spaces in the inner-city suburb of Brunswick were explored as threshold sites for creative activations. It engaged the local community through (re)imagined contemporary installations of Threshold Crossings. RMIT PlaceLab was located at the intersection of functional spaces used by the community for different purposes. A site adjacent to the railway line that was in proximity to the PlaceLab was initially activated. A walking and cycle path was running alongside a railway line, the two separated by a wire fence. Activation allowed these intersectional spaces to be seen as passageways with the vitality to bring different parts of the community in movement within suburban spaces in contact. This was similar to sites described in Singapore. Passersby were engaged to create drawings using clay, natural pigments, and flora collected from distinct locations in Victoria (Figure 7), responding to how they experience local spaces and the community. The participants consisted of children accompanied by adults and regular walkers working close by or living in the neighborhood. The materials used in the performative drawings were derived from land as is the case in the traditional Kolam. These naturally sourced materials allowed participants to shift their familiar patterns of how drawings are performed. The tactility of materials through gestural acts shifted how participants responded. It brought the proximity of natural environments of outer suburbia and regional places to inner suburban spaces. The informal outdoor setting and nature of the materials allowed the participants to respond eagerly and with ease, resulting in individual responses. This preliminary activation served to establish the methodology with respect to the materials and process.

Threshold Crossing, as an installation of a material encounter, was created as a participatory act of assembling individual drawings with the local community. The creative place making as a performance on a suburban site occurred alongside the normal rhythms of passersby and cyclists using the paths (Figure 8), the senses fully absorbing the encounter. The occasional train passed, with commuters also being able to observe this active suburban landscape. The performance of creative place making activated the space adjacent to the newly established RMIT PlaceLab Brunswick. It indirectly made the community aware of projects undertaken that address social, cultural, and political issues pertinent to the community.

The preliminary activation led to the development of a project with the residents of a social housing day center in Brunswick. The residents lived on the premises and used a common area on the ground floor as a place to gather. I arrived early on the day of the participatory activity to devote time to making observations. This allowed the opportunity to gauge how residents, staff and volunteers interacted with different spaces within the communal area and to assess what guided the formation of functional and social relationships. These observations were an important part of the methodology of the contemporary practice. It was adopted from witnessing how threshold sites functioned in performing the traditional Kolam. As a member of the Tamil diaspora and as an invited artist, the traditional ritual of heritage could be (re)imagined, bringing relevance to a community in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. In this instance, the performative act of creation was to take place in the shared spaces of communal living. The traditional practice can often be a shared creation, activating the common space (Laine 2013; Kanagasundaram 2019), as demonstrated earlier in the paper. The contemporary artwork was to evolve as a series of visual drawings created by residents, to tell their stories through material dialogue.

A partial glass door was the entry that separated the grassed area of the outside and the common room where most of the activities took place in the residential social housing complex. Staff and volunteers arrived early to commence the activities for the day, crossing the threshold that separated the outside and the communal space. The large multi-purpose common room functioned as a space to eat, drink, and socialize. Meals were prepared in the adjoining kitchen. The common room was also a place where creative activity took place on a specific day of the week. A community garden that was well tendered by residents and staff was in proximity to the communal area. The nature of the interaction between the residents, many of the staff, and volunteers was informed by observations. How spaces were used for social and domestic purposes; the greetings upon arrival; and the casual chatter amongst different groups demonstrated familiarity, informality, and a level of care of the collective group. These observations informed how relational aspects of an existing site become integrated into a project with the community.

Materials to be used for the participatory activity were assembled at the center of the table (Figure 9). The items included pieces of bark sourced from the artist’s location of practice, slips as slurries made from clay that had been sourced from different sites in Victoria, natural pigments, and tools for creating. About 10 people gathered including the staff member responsible for the weekly creative activity. They sat on chairs placed around the tables. Space was allowed for a participant with disability to position a wheelchair. Given the open space, the creative activities could be witnessed by others, some residents and staff intermittently joining the group to observe. I explained to the group that a threshold drawing of Kolam is carried out by Tamil women of South Indian or Sri Lankan origins and that I was part of the community. I expanded to indicate rice flour was used to create designs on the ground of entrance ways by hand. The group learnt that the drawing acted as a welcome, conveying a message and that it gradually eroded over time as people moved across it or natural elements shifted the material. I invited the participants to take a clay-coated bark piece each to individually draw visual messages as a group activity using clay as a medium and twigs as drawing tools. Drawings created using material relevant to the Australian landscape were going to form a collective work, Threshold Crossings, on a site that would become the chosen threshold.

Incorporating tangible materials of eucalyptus bark and twigs collected from the artist’s surroundings activated intangible relational connections and an imagined sense of living in the bush environment. It contrasted with the everyday surroundings of inner suburbia. Although the South Asian traditions from which the creative work was derived may have been unfamiliar, the presence of materials of the Australian landscape brought familiar connections. The participants began using these tactile materials as a medium with ease, using the tools provided. It required minimal guidance. Their expressions, hands in fluid motion and positions of their bodies indicated an attentiveness and an enthusiasm, allowing the works to unfold. The materials prompted participants to consider their own relationship to land, surrounding environments, and place. The clay used was sourced from various locations, namely, Merri-bek shire where the community-engaged activations were taking place, Nillumbik shire in the outer suburbia, and the regional area of Southwest Victoria. The latter was obtained during a visit prior to restrictions of the COVID pandemic, marking a time of change. The materiality of the clay bodies became a signifier of place.

The participants created pictorial and abstract drawings in response to the cues provided at the commencement of the activity, explained in the Materials and Methods section. The drawings were created on clay-coated eucalyptus bark pieces. A clay slip containing natural pigments was applied, using twigs as drawing tools (Figure 9). The materiality of raw clay on bark allowed the ephemeral characteristic of Kolam to be translated within the contemporary work. Clay, as a material that has a connection to place, has the potential to be transformed (Andreoletti 1999; Peterson and Peterson 2012). Materials from the natural environment allowed the participants to experience the creative process in a different way. The senses of tactility and visual associations of the materials, activated relational connections. This disassociation from familiar materials and tools used in drawing led participants to have a freedom to respond. The material and the participant in the performance of drawing exercised their respective agencies to act in collaboration (Barad 2007; Bolt 2013; Latour 2005).

Conversations accompanied the creative activity. One described their childhood growing up in a regional part of the state, the materials used triggering early memories. The place of the past was brought in proximity with the present through climate change and its impact seen through floods and the devastation of familiar regions. Flora and fauna were depicted in symbolic and pictorial form (Figure 10). Another participant drew forests, inviting the natural landscape into the urban environment. The communal area was creatively captured in pictorial form as a place where people gathered to share food, socialize and engage in creative activities. The residents revealed that it was through staff, volunteers, and visitors that the ‘outside world’ entered their daily lives. Most residents had limited connections to experience distant regions beyond the proximity of their communal living in a frequent manner. A participant described their interest in art making, expanding on their process and materials. This prompted a few to state how important the creative activities were to their weekly rhythm. Some of the works previously created were described. One participant came forward to say, ‘would you like to hear my story?’, explaining their journey to the current place of social housing, a place that has become a sense of community. In response, another suggested a creative activity of making where each could tell their story. The participants exercised agency in contributing ideas to create a place of belonging through performing their stories as creative expression, collectively. Memories of childhood, their journeys to communal shared housing, lives prior to arriving, previous social connections and current connections to those within the social housing complex, description of their domestic space, and their day-to-day lives were described. These conversations were fluid whilst the participants created drawings in rhythmic succession. There were repetitive patterns incorporated in some drawings. The intangible and tangible relational elements of place, memory, materials, and human connections were having a dialogue, activated by the creative process.

Residents identified the community garden as the site of the final assembly of the drawings. The garden not only connected the internal communal area to the outside environment but was also a site where nurturing of a space was expressed and experienced. The works were interlinked on the paved area around the garden beds (Figure 11). The materials sourced from the natural environment, with stories captured in the form of creative drawings, were now integrated into the surroundings of the participants’ place of communal living. It gave the opportunity for residents to experience the constant change in the assembled drawings, Threshold Crossings ll, through exposure to the natural elements of wind, rain, sun and movement of people, natural elements, and creatures that may frequent the space. Material transformation through fading and the loss of integrity would allow the works to merge with the existing surroundings as time passed. Threshold Crossing ll as a creative encounter not only activated the site but also enlivened the intangible elements of the memory of creating the artwork. A few creative responses were retained to be displayed on the walls of the social housing complex, an initiative put forward by a member of staff. It served as a catalyst for recalling the participatory event. The ephemeral Threshold Crossing ll as an encounter kept the site to enter the communal garden charged, whilst the more permanent displays served as archives for recalling the relational connections of a past event. This feature parallels that of the traditional Kolam practice where the diaspora, through the enactment of the material practice, bring memories of events and transnational connections of the past in proximity with the present (Jones 2016; Kanagasundaram 2019).

The glass wall and the concrete paved area forming the boundary of RMIT PlaceLab became surfaces on which a further (re)imagined drawing was created. It served as a pictorial map to reference the various sites of creative encounters of Threshold Crossings across the local area (Figure 12). The reflection on the glass surface captured the movement of people using the walking path, the commuter train, and cyclists whilst the pictorial map was simultaneously being created. The reflections and the map as a pictorial ritual drawing formed an ephemeral archive of momentary rhythms of suburbia to be experienced. Bodies in movement as part of the functional, social and creative landscape reflected the pulse of suburbia. Intersectional spaces and the movement of people across these mundane spaces are often not noticed. Creative activations highlight their vitality. These features are intrinsic to the traditional Kolam from which the (re)imagined practice was adapted. Given the proximity of the Jewel railway station, the pictorial map alerted passersby to the community-engaged activities that may otherwise go unnoticed despite their proximity. The threshold activations became linked, providing opportunities to explore unfamiliar streets. The characteristics of the traditional form can be harnessed through their material, social, and performative agencies to (re)imagine a broader dialogue bringing the wider community beyond the diaspora into the conversation.

4. Discussion

Socially engaged material practices have been part of the global South throughout history (Castellano 2021). They have continued to be carried out into present times by individuals and collectives. Histories of collective enactments in public spaces apply to South Asian rituals practiced not only in places of cultural origin but also in places where the diaspora have settled. The traditional ritual drawing of Kolam performed by Tamil women to activate threshold spaces is situated within this canon that integrates cultural value. Meaning within a social, spatial, material, and devotional context is derived upon performing the ritual (V. R. Nagarajan 2007; V. Nagarajan 2018). Social engagement is neither a recent phenomenon nor one that needs to be solely embedded within a western canon of socially engaged art. This is particularly relevant when considering a contemporary practice that is drawn from a distinct cultural tradition. The contemporary material expression as a performative threshold practice described in this paper is (re)imagined from the traditional ritual drawing of Kolam. It is situated at intersections of both South Asian as well as well as contemporary, community-engaged, creative expressions. The (re)imagined threshold adopts methodologies relevant to both.

Social and devotional values are integrated within the Kolam practice, performed through gestural acts of material and design. Practitioners within the Tamil community in Australia and Singapore maintain these relational values intrinsic to the Kolam practice through the performative enactments of material expressions in public spaces on auspicious days. Women practitioners become knowledge bearers and conveyers of culture to the local Tamil community post-migration, imparting their tacit knowledge through material, performative, and verbal communication. It ensures the continuity of the practice but also acts as performative place making that helps build a sense of cultural belonging for the Tamil community. Witnessing the performative bodies of Tamil women collectively contributing to the gradual evolution of Kolam drawings plays an important role on auspicious days such as Pongal and Deepavali. Performances of ‘ritual acted as an emotional and sensory connector’ and furthermore, a ‘powerful source of bonding with other Tamils in the local area who shared knowledge and experience of the authentic undertaking of these rituals’ (Jones 2016, p. 64). Skilled hands deliver colorfully pigmented rice flour or rice grains in fluid movements. The ground becomes transformed into elaborate designs and thus activated through the performative action of the hand and material responding in motion.

The socio-historical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal features all have a role in how learning occurs (Vygotsky 1978) through community, family, or a friendship group. Enactment of Kolam engages the agency of multiple types of symbols. It acts as a language of expression, conveying meaning in the beliefs and values of the practitioner, family, social group, and larger community. Tacit knowledge is often learnt and developed in informal ways through the combination of individual practice, daily routines, dialogue, and discussions with the community of practice (Jashapara 2004; Mukerji 2014). Tacit knowledge within a cultural context, in this case a ritual, is exercised in ‘repetitive activities that constitute the heart of daily existence’ contributing to shifts ‘following their own material logics and imaginaries’ (Mukerji 2014, p. 348). Repetitive acts become part of the material communication of cultural origins using rice or rice flour. The performance acknowledges the earth from which rice is harvested as a source of nourishment for humans and a multitude of creatures (V. Nagarajan 2018). The gestural and material actions activate transnational and local connections of social and devotional relevance not only for the practitioner but also for the community witnessing them.

Public spaces in places where South Asian migrants have settled in Australia and Singapore become sites for collective creations during the marking of significant festivals. How these spaces are transformed into threshold encounters is discussed within the paper. Familiar practices of cultural origins were reproduced. The diasporic community, through the performative acts of ritual drawing, were exercising agency in claiming a place within the broader community in Australia and in Singapore.

Witnessing the performative drawings of Kolam by groups of women allowed a methodology for a (re)imagined, socially engaged, contemporary practice to be developed. The traditional ritual was adapted to reflect new surroundings and the inclusion of a wider community that has become relevant to the diaspora. The (re)imagined form integrated the essential features of the traditional ritual that harnessed the agencies of the performative gesture, material, social, spatial, and metaphysical. Creative activations of drawings used bark and clay as material sources. Local community using the inner suburban spaces of Brunswick such as public footpaths and residents in a social housing complex became participants. These communities and spaces that were less visible now became revealed as being part of the pulse of inner suburbia. The gestural drawings assembled as threshold encounters highlighted transitional spaces intersecting distinct domains of inner suburban spaces. The materials sourced from the natural environment initiated a dynamic relational dialogue for participants upon performing the drawings.

Theories underpinning the relational aesthetics of Bourriaud (2002) and material agency within New Materialism (Barad 2007; Bolt 2013) were applied to analyze the social and material dialogue. Relational aesthetics signaled a shift prioritizing the value of social relations, elevating inter-subjective relations above the visual object (Bourriaud 2002). Artistic practice that engages directly with the community to integrate social relations within the creation of the collective artwork gave rise to a diverse array of practices (Bishop 2006; Castellano 2021; Helguera 2011). A critiquing of some socially engaged works has highlighted a privileging of social relationships above conceptual significance. The visual and sensory aesthetic of the artwork, and depth of evaluating the social interactions relevant to the work, were considered to receive less attention (Bishop 2006). Socially engaged works are commonly dialogic, experimental, interventionist, and participatory, motivated by collective action and shared experience (Bishop 2006). The gestural performance of the (re)imagined threshold drawing using bark and clay triggered relational connections for the participant, generating stories that were shared with the group. Past events, spatial settings and communities relevant to the participant’s personal history at different times came alive. They became meaning-generative not only for the creator but also for the group listening. It triggered others to share their own journeys and connections.

The performative agency of both the traditional as well as the (re)imagined practice demonstrates how material, spatial, social, and metaphysical elements are harnessed to activate a dynamic network of meaningful associations for the performer as well as for the community. Material and participant functioned as an ensemble to perform the activation of the relational dialogue (Latour 2005). They served as a catalyst for generating associations of place, people, and objects, the participant conveying it through personal stories and in visual form. Rather than material being primarily one that is passive by serving a purpose, clay and flora within this project were performing entities prompting the dynamics of the relational connections and the social dialogue. Matter is understood in relation to social, cultural, metaphysical, and meaning-making intentions. The material items within the (re)imagined threshold drawings ‘is a dynamic intra-active becoming that never sits still-an ongoing reconfiguring that exceeds any linear conception of dynamics’ (Barad 2007, p. 170). Through this dynamism, matter as a performing entity becomes presented in new ways, to activate meaning in connections, the past coming into proximity with the present to draw relevance.

The making of artefacts is an avenue for the community to have a dialogue (Hegeman 2016; Kanagasundaram 2019). The Kolam ritual (re)imagined as a threshold encounter within a contemporary art practice extends the idea of how the practices of the diaspora serve as a ‘cultural prism’, as introduced earlier. The artist, as a member of the Tamil diaspora, takes agency to (re)imagine the performative drawing of the Tamil tradition to bring relevance to a wider community and the spatial surroundings of settled places. Threshold Crossings broadens the dialogue beyond the diaspora on transformative states, including the human state of ‘crossing’ boundaries. Transitional spaces in inner suburbia that served as passageways for functional purposes became enlivened through performative acts of creating threshold encounters. The significance of thresholds has been described as more than mere boundaries that differentiate, but instead were frontiers ‘that divide territories, rhythms and atmospheres’ (O’Donohue 2008, p. 53). The conceptual artworks in the project Threshold Crossings brought a local community, in making them, together. As Miwon Kwon in ‘One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and locational Identity’ (Kwon 2002) described, a site becomes a social framework rather than merely bound by a conceptual or phenomenological framework. The series of drawings created on bark using clay allowed an avenue for intangible relations emerging from an individual’s participatory experience to be heard by the collective group. It revealed human experiences of communities less visible, their daily lives and their movements contributing to the pulse of inner suburban rhythms. These local communities take agency through the performance of creative expressions to activate the inner suburban spaces of their neighborhood. The transformation led the material integrity constituting the threshold encounters to change over time, keeping the site as a charged space. It continued to allow participants as part of the local community to recall the performative creative expressions and the conversations that occurred during its making. Both became integrated as part of the artwork.

5. Conclusions

The creative practice-led research highlights the potential of the ritual performances of the diaspora. They are far-reaching when multiple modes of expression are adopted to suit the community. The traditional and (re)imagined threshold performances revealed the continuity and change experienced by the diaspora. Both are enacted to enliven a material and social dialogue, contributing to their simultaneous transformation. The practitioners within the Tamil diaspora took agency to facilitate social relations for the benefit of the group. The research also introduces new approaches to the methodology. Both the practices act in a dynamic and responsive manner that bring relevance to the lives of the diaspora and the wider community through the activation of a relational dialogue in urban and suburban spaces.