Naked as Trans: Philemon Mukarno’s Sacred Performance on Identity, Transition, and Spiritual Transformation

Understanding Naked as Trans as Spiritual Inquiry into Identity

Philemon Mukarno’s “Naked as Trans” (2023) represents a profound embodied exploration of transition, identity, and spiritual transformation through naked performance art. Presented at Prague’s 9th Festival of Naked Forms (FNAF) held September 1-3, 2023 on the cultural boat Altenburg 1964, the work engaged the festival’s central theme celebrating “Nudity as Trans.” The performance took place on an abandoned industrial site near the venue, creating striking contrast between nature and industrial decay. Mukarno’s nakedness combined with ritualistic engagement of raw materials—iron wires, stones, black soot, iron rods—created powerful meditation on the journey from constraint toward liberation and spiritual authenticity.

The concept of “Nudity as Trans” underlying the festival emphasized that transition represents moment of pure nakedness requiring absolute honesty with oneself. As festival curator Lenka Klodová explained, nakedness throughout human history signifies transition—from biblical narrative’s recognition of one’s own nudity marking departure from heavenly state toward human destiny. Eastern spiritual traditions including Jurodivis and Czech Hussite Adamites recognized nakedness as reference to extraordinary personal relationship with God. The festival celebrated how nudity functions as both literal and metaphorical state of consciousness transformation central to performance art itself.

The Sacred Architecture of Iron and Stone: Metaphors for Constraint and Transformation

Iron Wires as Binding Oppression and Spiritual Struggle

Mukarno’s performance began with entangling his naked body in thick iron wires, creating immediate physical and psychological impact. The heavy wires bound his flesh, preventing free movement and causing pain with every gesture. The choice of iron rather than rope or softer material carries profound significance—iron represents industrial hardness, permanence, and oppressive weight. The wires themselves suggest networks of constraint—multiple strands binding together, creating seemingly inescapable entanglement. This opening gesture communicates the fundamental human condition of existing within systems of constraint and limitation.

The iron wires also specifically reference the industrial context of the performance site. The abandoned industrial landscape surrounding Altenburg 1964 provides crucial backdrop suggesting how modernity and industrialization have created systems of oppression and alienation. The wires become symbol of how contemporary society constrains human identity and authentic expression. The performer’s body tangled within industrial materials visualizes how modern existence binds and restricts authentic being. The pain caused by the wires represents genuine suffering resulting from constraint systems.

Yet the wires also reference earlier performance traditions where artists have used pain and physical difficulty as spiritual practice. The entanglement becomes deliberate choice undertaken for specific artistic and spiritual purpose. Mukarno doesn’t merely suffer passively but engages the wires consciously, suggesting that consciousness and intention can transform the meaning of constraint. The performance suggests that acknowledging oppressive systems directly becomes necessary precursor toward liberation from them.

The contrast between soft vulnerable flesh and hard unyielding iron carries profound symbolic weight. The flesh represents sensitivity, capacity for feeling, and embodied consciousness. The iron represents rigid systems apparently impervious to individual negotiation or transformation. Yet the performance suggests that tender flesh can survive entanglement with hard systems. The body’s persistence despite constraint becomes testimony to human resilience and spiritual strength.

The Stone Cross as Sacrifice and Sacred Geometry

Following the iron wire entanglement, Mukarno collected stones from the industrial site and attempted to arrange them into Christian cross. He then lay upon the cross, evoking immediate associations with crucifixion and religious sacrifice. The choice of stone—both from the earth yet shaped deliberately by human intention—carries multiple meanings. Stone represents geological deep time and Earth’s consciousness. Yet stones also represent human construction and deliberate creation.

The cross itself carries powerful Christian symbolism of sacrifice, suffering, and redemption. The performance engages this deeply with the artist’s body becoming literal living christ figure. The nakedness intensifies the religious dimension—recalling Christian imagery of crucified Christ stripped of all worldly possession and protection. The performance asks audiences to confront how religious systems sometimes celebrate suffering and sacrifice while simultaneously condemning the human body and sexuality.

The deliberate construction of the cross from collected materials suggests that sacred meaning emerges through human action and intention rather than being divinely imposed externally. The performance doesn’t passively receive religious authority but actively creates sacred meaning through embodied practice. The artist becomes both crucified victim and active creator, maintaining agency even while enacting sacrifice. This inverts typical Christian narrative where individuals remain passive recipients of divine grace.

The gesture also visualizes the spiritual crisis many individuals face when religious systems demand sacrifice of authentic identity and embodied expression. The cross becomes metaphor for how religion sometimes requires individuals to sacrifice their true selves—their queerness, their sexuality, their authentic identity—in service to doctrinal conformity. Yet by consciously choosing to lie upon the cross, Mukarno suggests possibility of voluntary sacrifice undertaken for spiritual growth rather than forced conformity. The willing sacrifice differs fundamentally from imposed oppression.

The Altar of Iron and Soot: Transformation Through Sacred Ritual

The Iron Cage as Liminal Sacred Space

Moving from the stone cross, Mukarno approached an altar constructed from thick iron rods protruding upward. The structure resembled simultaneously a cage and a trap—constraining yet potentially containing sacred presence. The iron altar carries multiple associations: in Christian tradition, altars function as spaces where material and divine dimensions meet; simultaneously, the cage-like structure suggests imprisonment and constraint. The performance deliberately holds these contradictory meanings in tension.

The artist’s attempt to wriggle into the iron altar structure represents entering into sacred space despite physical difficulty and psychological trepidation. The confined space of the altar requires the body to contract and assume awkward positions. This physical challenge parallels the psychological and spiritual difficulty of approaching genuine transformative spiritual experience. The performance suggests that encountering the sacred requires courage and vulnerability—entering spaces potentially dangerous and constraining.

Within the iron altar, Mukarno underwent profound physical and symbolic transformation by smearing black soot across his entire naked body. The black substance completely alters his appearance and visual presence. What was white flesh becomes blackened—covered in industrial residue collected from the abandoned site. The blackening simultaneously represents spiritual cleansing through contact with natural and industrial elements, and corruption through exposure to industrial contamination. The ambiguity remains intentional—suggesting that transformation involves both purification and contamination.

The soot covering represents multiple layers of spiritual meaning. In various traditions, ashes signify repentance, purification, and return to elemental origins. The black color traditionally associates with darkness, death, and the unknown. Yet black also represents fertility, potential, and the unmanifested. The soot transformation becomes liminal threshold where the performer neither remains in previous state nor fully enters transformed state. The partial coverage—through deliberate smearing rather than complete immersion—suggests incomplete transformation always in progress rather than final achieved state.

Black Soot as Symbol of Spiritual Death and Renewal

The deliberate coating of the naked body with black soot marks visible transformation that audiences can perceive directly. The change in appearance communicates inner spiritual shift through external visible alteration. What remains invisible—consciousness transformation, spiritual awakening, identity liberation—becomes perceptible through the darkened flesh. The body becomes text through which internal spiritual processes become readable.

The soot also connects the performance to industrial heritage and contemporary environmental reality. The black powder represents contamination resulting from human industrial expansion. Yet rather than fleeing from industrial pollution, the performer deliberately incorporates it into his body. This suggests complex relationship toward modernity and technology—neither wholly rejecting nor wholly embracing but rather integrating industrial elements as part of contemporary spiritual practice. The performance acknowledges that modern spiritual practice must engage with industrial and technological reality.

The blackening also invokes shamanic initiation traditions where individuals undergo symbolic death and rebirth. The black coating represents the death of previous identity and consciousness. Emerging from the blackness represents rebirth into new understanding and identity. The performance suggests that genuine transformation requires symbolic death of previous self. The old identity must cease existing before new authentic identity can emerge.

The gradual process of soot application permits audiences to witness the transformation occurring in real time. Rather than presenting finished transformation, the performance reveals transformation as gradual process requiring effort and intention. The viewer’s witness to this unfolding change creates sense of participation in spiritual process. The audience becomes co-creator of the performance’s meaning through their presence and attention.

The Holy Mountain: Ascension and Dissolution

The Piled Stones as Path Toward Transcendence

The performance’s final movement involved Mukarno approaching a mountain constructed from accumulated stones piled at the site. The natural accumulation of stones transformed through performance imagination into “holy mountain”—sacred landscape permitting spiritual ascension. The mountain of stones represents both obstacle to overcome and destination to reach. The artist’s movement toward and into the mountain visualizes spiritual journey culminating in transcendence and union with nature.

The mountain also carries symbolic significance in numerous spiritual traditions. Mountains represent axis mundi connecting material earth with transcendent heavens. Climbing mountains signifies spiritual ascent and transformation. The holy mountain becomes pilgrimage destination where individuals approach the divine through physical movement and spiritual intention. Mukarno’s naked journey toward and into the mountain recapitulates this universal spiritual archetype.

The specific gesture of disappearing into the mountain suggests final dissolution of individual ego boundary and merger with larger natural and spiritual forces. The performer ceases to appear as separate individual and becomes indistinguishable from the landscape. This final transcendence represents culmination of the journey—the complete liberation from oppressive systems and full integration with nature and cosmos. The disappearance suggests that ultimate spiritual realization involves dissolution of individual separateness.

The mountain also represents return to Earth and elemental origins. After the journey through industrial materials and sacred transformations, the performer finally returns to the natural landscape. The soot-covered body merges with the dark stones. The distinction between performer and environment becomes unclear. This suggests that authentic spirituality emerges through recognizing fundamental unity with natural world rather than maintaining separation from nature through civilization and culture.

The Final Transcendence as Spiritual Completion

The climactic disappearance into the mountain represents the apex of the performance’s spiritual arc. The journey from iron constraint through sacred sacrifice and transformative ritual culminates in complete release from separate identity. The performance suggests that liberation requires not merely escaping oppressive systems but ultimately transcending individual ego boundaries altogether. Spiritual awakening involves recognizing that individual separateness remains illusion masking fundamental unity.

Yet the disappearance also preserves mystery. Audiences cannot perceive what occurs as the performer enters the mountain. The disappearance remains incomplete and ambiguous rather than providing clear resolution. This mirrors genuine spiritual experience which remains mysterious and beyond rational comprehension. The performance refuses providing comfortable closure—instead suggesting that transformation extends beyond the performance itself into realms audiences cannot access or understand.

The final image of the performer integrated into the mountainous landscape also honors the site-specific nature of the performance. The abandoned industrial location contains actual history of extraction, production, and waste. By completing the performance integrated into this specific place, Mukarno acknowledges how spiritual transformation emerges through direct engagement with particular locations and their histories. The spirituality remains grounded in specific place rather than transcending materiality.

The movement into the mountain also represents possible continuation of the performance beyond what audiences can witness. The performer may continue existing within the mountain, may emerge transformed in unexpected ways, or may remain dissolved into the landscape. The performance’s refusal to provide final resolution suggests that transformation remains ongoing rather than achieving completion.

Transition as Core Concept: Movement Between States

Understanding Transition as Fundamental Spiritual Process

The central concept underlying both the festival and Mukarno’s performance emphasizes transition as essential spiritual dimension. Transition involves movement between states—from constraint toward freedom, from ignorance toward awareness, from fragmentation toward wholeness. Every person undergoes transitions throughout life: from childhood to adulthood, from one identity to another, from one consciousness state to different awareness. The festival celebrating “Nudity as Trans” honored how humans continually transition and transform across lifespans.

Nudity itself becomes metaphor for the transitional state. Nakedness represents the threshold between clothed social identity and authentic embodied being. It visualizes the moment when protective facades dissolve and raw reality becomes visible. The transition into nakedness requires vulnerability and courage—abandoning the protective semiotics of clothing. Similarly, spiritual transformation requires abandoning protective psychological structures and opening toward genuine vulnerability.

The performance traces complete arc of transition—from initial constraint through progressive liberation toward final transcendence. Each gesture and material engagement represents step within larger transitional journey. The iron wires, stone cross, iron altar, black soot, and mountain journey all constitute movements between states. The overall performance becomes lived experience of fundamental transitional process.

Transition also emphasizes that transformation remains ongoing rather than achieving final completion. The performance never presents itself as providing permanent solution or ultimate resolution. Instead, the journey continues beyond the performance itself. The disappearance into the mountain suggests that transformation extends infinitely beyond any single performance or individual action. The concept of transition honors how change remains constant throughout existence.

Nakedness as Absolute Honesty and Spiritual Authenticity

The curator’s statement that transition requires “absolute honesty with oneself” points toward why nakedness becomes chosen medium for spiritual inquiry. Clothing permits numerous forms of deception and protection—hiding what one wishes to conceal, displaying what one wishes to emphasize. The clothed body can misrepresent inner reality through carefully managed presentation. Nakedness strips away these protective possibilities, revealing embodied reality unmediated by cultural representation.

Absolute honesty with oneself means acknowledging oppressive systems operating invisibly, recognizing internalized shame and constraint, facing authentic desires and impulses regardless of cultural condemnation. The naked body cannot hide these inner truths—they become visible in embodied vulnerability and authentic expression. The performance invites audiences and performer toward such absolute honesty, suggesting that genuine spirituality requires unflinching recognition of truth however uncomfortable or challenging.

The honesty also extends toward acknowledging the pain and difficulty of authentic transformation. The performance doesn’t present liberation as easy or comfortable achievement. The pain from iron wires, the difficulty of arranging stones and lying upon the cross, the discomfort of wriggling into the iron cage, the physical challenge of the journey toward the mountain—all communicate that authentic transformation demands sacrifice and effort. The performance refuses softening the truth of what genuine change requires.

Honesty also involves acknowledging the beauty and possibility of transformation alongside the difficulty and pain. The gradual movements of the performance reveal increasing freedom and authentic expression even as physical challenge continues. The final transcendence suggests that difficulty and pain ultimately permit access to profound spiritual dimensions unavailable through comfortable complacency. The honesty permits holding contradiction in tension—acknowledging both the struggle and the beauty simultaneously.

Religious Symbolism and Spiritual Resistance

Engaging Christian Imagery for Spiritual Reclamation

Mukarno’s deliberate engagement with Christian symbolism—particularly the cross and the altar—reflects the artist’s complex relationship toward religion. The performance demonstrates both critique of oppressive religious systems and recognition of religious imagery’s profound spiritual power. The cross becomes vehicle for addressing how religion sometimes demands sacrifice of authentic identity while simultaneously offering pathway toward spiritual transformation. The ambiguity remains intentional—neither wholly rejecting Christian tradition nor accepting it uncritically.

The performance particularly addresses how religious traditions have treated nakedness and embodied sexuality. Many Christian contexts teach that bodies require control, concealment, and shame. The naked performance body becomes direct challenge to such teachings. By presenting naked vulnerability within religious symbolic framework, Mukarno reclaims the body as legitimate spiritual instrument. The performance suggests that authentic Christianity would celebrate embodied existence rather than condemning it.

The iron altar carries additional religious resonance—it becomes both sacred space where divine presence dwells and cage where individuals become imprisoned by religious constraint. The performance acknowledges how religious institutions simultaneously offer spiritual nourishment and spiritual oppression. The iron altar holds this contradiction without resolving it—suggesting that real religious experience involves wrestling with ambiguity rather than accepting simple answers.

The black soot transformation occurring within the altar space suggests spiritual death and renewal emerging through religious engagement. The performer doesn’t merely reject religion but undergoes transformation through wrestling with religious symbols and traditions. The soot-blackened emergence from the altar suggests altered consciousness resulting from such struggle. The performance models how engagement with religious traditions can facilitate spiritual transformation even when critiquing oppressive dimensions.

Spiritual Authority Through Vulnerable Embodiment

The performance establishes Mukarno as spiritual teacher and guide through demonstrating courageous vulnerable embodiment. The artist’s willingness to present nakedness, experience pain, and undergo transformation before assembled audience establishes authority not through institutional credentials but through lived embodied practice. The naked vulnerable body becomes most credible spiritual voice precisely because it refuses hiding behind authority claims or doctrinal positions.

The performance suggests that authentic spirituality emerges not from institutional religion but from individuals willing to engage genuine transformation regardless of personal cost. The artist’s courage to present raw vulnerable reality without protective barriers becomes spiritual testimony more powerful than sermon or theological argument. The audience witnesses genuine spiritual practice occurring in real time—not merely hearing about spirituality conceptually but perceiving it through vulnerable embodied presence.

The performer’s intentional choice to undergo pain and difficulty also establishes authority. The audience recognizes that the artist chooses this challenging spiritual practice voluntarily rather than having it imposed externally. This voluntary commitment demonstrates genuine spiritual devotion distinguishing authentic practice from mere exhibition or spectacle. The willingness to suffer for spiritual insight aligns with countless spiritual traditions valuing sacrifice as pathway toward awakening.

The final transcendence and disappearance also establishes spiritual authority through suggesting that the performer accesses dimensions beyond ordinary consciousness. The movement into the mountain and dissolution into landscape suggest achieving heightened spiritual states accessible through the ritualized practice. The audience recognizes they are witnessing individual who has traveled far into spiritual territory and returns transformed.

Conclusion: Naked as Trans as Ceremony of Collective Transformation

Philemon Mukarno’s “Naked as Trans” stands as courageous artistic statement about identity, transition, and spiritual awakening through naked embodied performance art. The 2023 presentation at Prague’s Festival of Naked Forms engaged festival’s central concept that nudity represents absolute honesty permitting authentic transformation. The performance traced complete arc from oppressive iron constraint through sacred ritual toward final transcendence. The journey through iron wires, stone cross, iron altar, and holy mountain became lived experience of spiritual awakening and identity liberation.

The performance’s power emerges through its commitment to raw honesty and authentic vulnerability. The artist’s naked body becomes vehicle for communicating truths beyond intellectual discourse. The visible pain, the evident struggle, the genuine transformation—all become palpable through direct embodied perception. Audiences cannot dismiss or distance themselves from what they witness directly. The performance demands authentic response from viewers through its own unwavering authenticity.

The deliberate engagement with Christian symbolism and industrial materials grounds the work in specific cultural and historical context while addressing universal themes. The performance acknowledges contemporary reality—the industrial legacy, the religious constraint, the spiritual hunger—while suggesting possibility of transformation transcending these oppressive systems. The work speaks particularly to those struggling with identity questions and religious oppression while addressing broader human concerns about authenticity and spiritual awakening.

The site-specific nature of the performance—using materials found at the abandoned location, engaging with the landscape directly—honors how genuine transformation emerges through engagement with particular places and circumstances rather than remaining abstract. The industrial wasteland becomes sacred space through the artist’s intentional spiritual practice. The performance suggests that spirituality remains accessible anywhere when individuals approach experiences with genuine intention and authentic vulnerability.

Through “Naked as Trans” and his broader artistic practice, Mukarno affirms the power of naked embodied performance for facilitating spiritual consciousness transformation. The vulnerable naked body becomes sacred instrument for accessing truth beyond ordinary consciousness. The transition from constraint toward freedom becomes lived spiritual practice rather than mere conceptual understanding. The collective witness becomes temporary sacred community recognizing shared capacity for transformation and spiritual awakening. The performance leaves indelible impact—on individual consciousness, on cultural conversation about identity and spirituality, on collective understanding of how authentic transformation occurs through courageous vulnerable embodiment.

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Title: Naked as Trans: Philemon Mukarno’s Sacred Performance on Identity, Transition, and Spiritual Awakening