GATELESS II – The Burden

Photography by Manuel Rusca - 2024

Garment design, styling, modeling and performance by Giselle Manzano Ramirez (OBRA)

This still captures The Burden, a ceremonial character from my performance piece Gateless II, where wearable sculpture, movement, and spiritual storytelling converge. Set in the forest and performed in water, the piece evokes a ritual of release—symbolically and somatically shedding inherited weight. Constructed from rust-dyed fabrics and a sculptural cluster of fabric-wrapped bundles, the garment externalizes what is often unseen: trauma, memory, and intergenerational imprint.

Created during a period of deep personal and spiritual transformation, The Burden embodies my passage from confinement into liberation. The performance is inspired by The Gateless Gate, a Zen text exploring the illusion of obstacles—barriers that only exist until we recognize their falseness. Through this character, I channel the weight of unspoken wounds—familial, cultural, spiritual—and the moment of offering them back to the land, to be witnessed, transformed, and composted into new life. This piece will be exhibited in 2025 as part of a group show celebrating women in performance and textile-based art.