Dancing on the Precipice
The Myth of Navai and the Winged
Dancing on the Precipice explores humanity’s enduring fascination with death—the thin veil between presence and absence, the known and the unknown. Across cultures and centuries, myths and religions have been woven as attempts to understand mortality, offering solace in the face of fear and loss. These works builds on that lineage, creating a modern myth to navigate the collective grief of recent years.
The Covid pandemic brought us to face death in ways previously unfamiliar. In response, Dancing on the Precipice envisions an afterlife inhabited by The Winged—hybrid human-bird beings who exist in perpetual motion on the threshold between the living and the dead. Birds, throughout mythology, have long been liminal creatures, messengers between worlds, symbols of both freedom and fragility. Their flight embodies transcendence, while their eggs speak of birth, fragility, and the delicate balance of existence.
At the heart of the myth is Navai, the gentle guide who carries souls across the precipice. She does not force, nor does she resist—she merely stands watching, a quiet witness to the passage of time and transition. Around her, The Winged dance, slipping effortlessly into the beyond, while the living cling to the weight of anguish, fear, and loss.
In this imagined world, hands hatch from eggs, offerings are made to unseen deities, and mothers cradle lifeless offspring in silent mourning. Yet even in death, there is warmth. The afterlife is not a place of darkness, but one of movement—an eternal dance, light and unburdened.
This project brings together sculptural forms, poetry, and mythology, offering a space for reflection on the delicate boundary between life and death. It does not seek to provide answers but instead invites contemplation, allowing the viewer to step, even momentarily, onto the precipice and glimpse into the world beyond.
‘Navai and The Winged’
On the precipice of life, there stands a winged being.
Navai, with her beak held high,
Sits upon the boundary between the living and the dead.
She is the gentle guide who carries the wings of the lost
Across the precipice.
The membrane is fragile there,
And many beings dance on the edge.
Their wings passing into the beyond effortlessly.
The boundary disintegrates for the lost
As death becomes painless.
The afterlife is a place of undefined structure.
Where lightness carries their feathers
Through the breeze and across the torrents.
The Winged dance weaving in between each other,
As the world moves slowly beneath them.
The dead brush into their existence easily.
There is no weight to this life.
The precipice is thin and yet,
One sides fragility
Is more tangible than the other.
The living collapse easily.
Anguish, fear and disease permeate this world,
Ending the existence of the earthly with ease.
They plead to her for their exodus to be painless,
Whilst she stands, strong,
Gazing down upon the edge.
We look to her in death.
She is the tranquil guide,
Whose wings carry us into the dance.
Sending us twisting and gliding,
Eternally intertwined with the lightness.
The Winged have sight far keener than ours.
They can look upon the edge back into mortality.
Their presence teetering upon the membrane,
Like the faint glow of one’s own reflection,
When gazing upon a still body of water.
A mother sits cradling her egg.
The crack shows a glimpse of a limp beak hanging,
The blood drips
Into a steady pool of
Crimson.
Another pair of tired palms
Clutch yet another damaged egg.
The warmth fades,
As an extended hand slowly reaches
From a place of unbelievable lightness.
Navai’s sharp eyes retain a power
Beyond the silence.
She accepts the offerings with ease,
Guiding the dead through their transcendence
Into the dance, beyond.
It is warm there,
And easy.
They fly into each other's' arms,
Cradled in the nest of eternal youth,
As Navai stands waiting with perpetual patience.