Writings

Read writings by Damchö (Michelle Tonkin) exploring art, ritual, embodiment, and ecological inquiry. Essays and reflections tracing thresholds of transformation and practice.

Photograph of Band-Aid Buddha by Damchö, showing three seated Buddha-like forms covered in hand-pasted text and hydrocolloidal healing bandaids. Silver audio speakers are positioned behind each figure’s head, resembling halos. The work evokes a chrysalis-like, shrine-like atmosphere of enclosure, care, and ritual transformation.

Punctuating the Unspeakable: Montien Boonma, Ritual, and the Boundaries of Language

Reflecting on the work of Thai artist Montien Boonma, this essay by Damchö explores how ritual, grief, and symbolic form become ways to speak the unspeakable, tracing the limits of language and the silent architectures of healing.

WRITINGS

Atmospheric moonrise over the Himalayas, Himachal Pradesh, India.

Pure Perception and Pure Suffering

A survivor’s account from within a Tibetan Buddhist organisation. This trauma-informed reflection explores the entanglements of devotion, silence, and spiritual coercion — offered as part of an ongoing inquiry into rupture and repair.

WRITINGS