Orangutang is a mourning ritual, a dance of birth and death.
This ritual is my way of mourning the loss of my innocence and the innocence of others.
This performance is rooted in memories that came from practicing my ancestral religious traditions of Shia Islam.
Orangutang is the manifestation of my inner turmoil revealed to you.
An attempt at compassion towards the external world.
Orangutangs are a rare and endangered species native to Indonesia and Malaysia.
In Malay, ‘Orang-utang’ means ‘the man of the forest’.

—Arash Khakpour