The Marina Abramović Method transforms ritual and ancestral practices into a contemporary discipline of presence, endurance, and heightened consciousness. Rooted in her Balkan upbringing and informed by Indigenous Australian, Tibetan, and Brazilian traditions, it trains participants to slow down, engage fully with the moment, and confront personal limits.
Through disciplined, meditative action, the method cultivates resilience, self-awareness, and a profound connection to both body and mind in today’s fast-paced world. You can experience it directly by attending one of her workshops or explore a softer, reflective practice at home using the MAI Prompt Box.
Curated by Land to Land
Origins of the Abramovic Method. Presence and Nothingness.
Source: The Marina Abramović Institute Website
In a world of constant distraction, taking the time to connect to ourselves and to others is becoming a challenge. The Abramović Method is an opportunity to be in silence and connected with the present moment. The Method is a synthesis of Marina Abramović’s research and experience over the course of her 55-year career. It is an exploration of being present in both time and space.
Abramović credits her foundational understanding of presences to her experience with Aboriginal tribes in Australia. In 1980, through a grant Abramović and Ulay traveled to southwest of Central Australia to live with the nomadic Pitjantjatjara tribe. The two immersed and embraced the ways of tribal life. Over time with nothingness and the emptiness of the desert, removed from city life, Abramović felt overwhelming lightness and happiness and her senses were heightened.
Abramović also found a strong connection with meditative repetitive tasks as part of a process of changing consciousness. This started with a three-month period where she lived in a Tibetan community in India making ‘tsa-tsas,’ small buddhas moulded from clay:
“You make thousands of little Buddha images by putting in eight hours of labour per day. You may make a thousand or a million. Then the next three months labour of this sort is done in running water and you don’t see any result because it is invisible. In the first sort you can see the result and touch it but for the water there is nothing. The result is not important. It is the process that matters. It’s about the physical preparation, the labour and the merit that lets us get close to the portal and open it.” – Marina Abramović
“I am perfectly aware that I am disturbing a fine, precious balance. But on the other hand I think we live in an age which faces emergency: our consciousness is completely separated from our sources of energy”.
Transitory Objects and the Abramović Method. Ritual, Cleansing, and Healing
After Abramović / Ulay’s The Great Wall Walk (1988) in China, Abramović wanted to create a new body of work which communicated her experience on the Great Wall by activating the public. Bringing together what she learned of Tibetan and Chinese medicine and her experience of the energetic properties of different minerals, she created “Transitory Objects,” interactive objects, connecting the body to the earth. She created a system which corresponded different minerals to different body parts.
Continuing to develop this research, Abramović made numerous trips to Brazil, exploring the rich and diverse spiritual healing practices. She engaged in shamanistic rituals to take on new perspectives on human energy and consciousness. She spent time in different mines to source crystals, such as quartz and amethyst, for new versions of Transitory Objects, which activated the body’s three basic positions – sitting, standing, and laying. Witnessing the conditions of mines and rarity of these earths’ minerals, Abramović commented on the ethical boundary of the work: I am perfectly aware that I am disturbing a fine, precious balance. But on the other hand I think we live in an age which faces emergency: our consciousness is completely separated from our sources of energy. I want to reproduce this consciousness… Very soon I shall need no more crystals. It would certainly be a catastrophe if everyone started to take crystals out of the earth.” – Marina Abramović
