‘Jrai Dew’ takes inspiration from the Jrai people’s belief in the human and the cosmos. In their philosophy of existence, after death, the human will go through many stages to go back to their existence origin. The final stage is that they will transform into dew (ia ngôm in Jrai language) evaporating to the environment – the state of non-being – the beginning particles of new existence.
This project wants to look at Jrai woodcarving culture as poetic and sustainable as their concept of dew. Even though Jrai woodcarving has encountered burdens to survive and it may disappear, we hope it will come back to existence under the refreshing life. Further of this project is our desire to bring a critical perspective on Jrai culture and art in the whirl-wheel of industrialization - modernization and the nature of this land.