Conversations

Explore recorded conversations and interviews with Damchö (Michelle Tonkin) reflecting on contemporary art, ritual, spirituality, and living inquiry across disciplines.

Central image from Bodhi Unbound, showing Damchö seated cross-legged in a black latex catsuit and hood, hands in lotus mudra at the heart. She wears a serene expression, framed by a large, verdant green Bodhi leaf.

The Art of Being Unbound

A candid, contemplative conversation tracing Damchö’s path from monastic life to ritual embodiment, intimacy, and self-reclamation through Bodhi Unbound.

CONVERSATIONS

Cover of Silhouettes of the Soul: Meditations on Fashion, Religion and Subjectivity (Bloomsbury), featuring a black and white photograph of a labyrinthine interior with vaulted arches, reminiscent of a church or sacred crypt interior

The Art of Boundaries and Becoming in 'Silhouettes of the Soul.'

Damcho, a former Buddhist monastic, reflects on the relationship between agency and particular materials of self-fashioning. She uses Buddhist terminology to define her journey through latex culture, and how this experience brings a new consciousness to the body as a vehicle for inner awakening. Viewing the body as a temple and mirror, she searches for a special wisdom only accessed through the heightened sensory state of a tight-fitting second skin.

CONVERSATIONS

Portrait of the artist, Damchö wearing a transparent latex hood with openings for eyes and lips. Her eyes are closed, and she wears a burgundy latex catsuit. The colour tones are honeyed and milky, evoking a sense of enclosure and inward transformation.

Alter Ego Podcast: Flowing Through Thresholds

In this candid and contemplative conversation with the Alter Ego Podcast, Damchö reflects on a life shaped by spiritual devotion, rupture, and transformation. Moving between monastic discipline and embodied artistic practice, the dialogue explores ritual, identity, taboo, and the thresholds where freedom and constraint meet.

CONVERSATIONS