Bhramana I, Sahej Rahal

These photographs depict three separate enactments of Bhramana, an ongoing series of public performances by Sahej Rahal. In each performance, Rahal embodied an incarnation of the self-made character Bhramana. In Sanskrit, Bhramaṇa means “to roam about” and Rahal conceived of the wandering figure as a manifestation of his personal mythic universe.
For each Bhramana performance, Rahal fabricated intricate costumes and props. Dressed in a quilted robe and wearing a large headdress made of fake fur, Rahal staged Bhramana I on the Bandra Skywalk in Mumbai in 2012.
For Bhramana II, Rahal inhabited the livelier venue of a subway tunnel in a south Mumbai neighborhood. Swathed in bands of white cloth that accumulated atop his head as an immense (and at times unruly) turban, Rahal played a didgeridoo that he made from a found segment of PVC pipe.
Bhramana III was the most ornate manifestation of the traveling shaman, and was enacted in London’s Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens on the south bank of the Thames River. Inspired by a museum encounter with 18th-century ornamental weapons, Rahal created a gnarled headpiece accompanied by a wooden didgeridoo he recovered from a dumpster and deformed with crusty deposits. While patrolling Vauxhall, Rahal alternated between playing the mysterious device as a musical instrument and wielding it like an alien monocular.