Spirits and Ghosts: Journeys through Mongolia

Book Description
Introduction by Antonin Kratochvil. Spirits And Ghosts: Journeys Through Mongolia delves into the transitions and changes in Mongolia since 1996, addressing the issues and problems of this country still steeped in the murkiness of the post-Communist era, and awkwardly adapting to a new democratic system. Calfee documented the role of shamanism and ritual in this mysterious land, participating in the winter migration of a female shaman and her family over the mountains, sleeping on ice-covered fields at -40 degrees C, and taking photographs of her private seances, rarely seen by anyone outside of this exclusive nomadic culture. Calfee also spent years documenting the social ills of this little-understood East-Central Asian republic, spending days and nights in different prisons with adolescents, women, alcoholics, murderers, and many innocent people. Whether exploring the work camps that have not changed since Stalin's time, makeshift strip-mining conditions, rampant alcoholism, or the general hopelessness of urban life in the capital, Calfee's unflinching and haunting images leave a strong sense of correspondence between social problems and the dark spirituality of this troubled land.

About the Author
Julia Calfee studied journalism at NYU and art history at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. She has exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona, and at the Fondation Miro of Palma de Mallorca, which published Photogenese, a limited, large-format edition of her photographs in its permanent collection (1995). After going to Mongolia in 1997, she worked with an NGO to organize a horse-and-cart medical caravan covering over 2,000 miles in the Steppes, documenting human conditions in prisons and work camps. Calfee consequently became friends with a woman shaman and her family of reindeer herders. The exhibition of their winter migration, "Mountain Spirits of Mongolia" will travel to the United Nations in New York. Calfee lives in Brussels. Antonin Kratochvil, (Introduction), born in the Czech Republic in 1947, is a photojournalist whose work appears internationally in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times magazines, Newsweek, Esquire, and Detour, among others. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Recipient of the Emmy Award (1976); the Clio Award (1977); the International Center of Photography Award for Photojournalism (1992); The Pictures of the Year Award (1992); the Leica Medal of Excellence (1994); the First World Press Photo Award (1998); the Supravivere (2001); and the Erna & Victor Hasselblad Grant, Kratochvil has published Broken Dream (1997), and Incognito (2001). He lives in New York City.


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Calfee's photographs document her personal travels through post-Communist Mongolia-a strange and misunderstood place. Over several years, she photographed a variety of subjects, including men and women in Mongolian prisons and the winter migration of a female shaman. These shadowy black-and-white photographs render a bleak look. The dramatic angles, blurred focus, and grainy, high-speed film add a sense of mystery to the photos, telling us more about Calfee's artistic style than about the Mongolian people themselves. More helpful are the thumbnails and brief descriptions at the end of the book, but these sketchy contexts don't go far enough to connect the viewer to what is happening in the images. Personal commentary by Calfee herself would have made the difference. The chief problem, however, is the book's design and layout; most of the images are full spreads, causing the gutter to run through the center of nearly all the images. This poor design divides the images in half, making many of them unreadable. Calfee's mentor, photojournalist Antonin Kratochvil, contributes a brief introduction. Comprehensive art photo collections might consider purchase, but otherwise not recommended.-Shauna Frischkorn, Millersville Univ., PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.


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