Spirits And Ghosts

Spirits and Ghosts: Journeys through Mongolia delves into the transitions and changes in Mongolia since 1996, touching upon the obstinate rituals and beliefs of this country still steeped in the murkiness of the post-Communist era, and awkwardly adapting to a new democratic system. In the process Calfee deftly captures the role of shamanism and rites 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 -40Ýdegrees¨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 women, adolescents, murderers, alcoholics, and many innocent people. Whether exploring the work camps unchanged since Stalin's time, makeshift strip-mining conditions, rampant alcoholism, or the widespread hopelessness of urban life in the capital, Calfee's unflinching and haunting images illustrate an immense correspondence between social problems and the powerful spirituality of this intensely mystical - and mysterious - land.