Ghosts of Dansai
"Something is Hauntological when it references the dreams of the past, a nostalgia for a future that never came to be." - Mark Fisher
In Thailand's northeast Isaan region, people’s lives are deeply entwined with the spectral world.
In Dansai, Loei, villagers create masks made of sticky-rice baskets and coconut palm husks to honour the ghosts of the land who bring them abundant rice harvests through the upcoming monsoon.
Spiritual rituals, culminating in the annual summer Phi Ta Khon festival, and traditional wisdom offered a way for this agricultural community to understand the natural world around them. Water carries symbolic and spiritual significance; many of the town’s rituals are led by spirit mediums along the Mun River which runs through the town.
Yet Isaan is now at the forefront of Thailand’s climate crisis. Shifting monsoon patterns, drought, flooding, and soil degradation are disrupting traditional rice and fruit farming practices.
This ongoing project, shot on analogue film, explores the idea that the present is haunted by a future that can no longer materialise as imagined. In this context, ghosts are not just apparitions visualised through Dansai’s traditional mask making, but fading beliefs and ways of life under threat.
Supported, in part, by the IMF’s “Visions of Thailand” grant and the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
