In 2008 Alex Kershaw traveled to Dansai, a small town in Loei Province of Northeast Thailand on an Asialink Grant. His project was made in collaboration with the town council, village spirit leader and community during their annual Phi Ta Khon festival. Translated as 'ghosts follow people', Phi Ta Khon combines animist, Brahmin and Buddhist traditions. These articulate the bonds between the dead and the living, between sexual and agricultural fertility, between the community and their spirit-infested natural world.

Magic realist in approach, the video weaves harvest landscapes through documents of the festival and choreographed sequences where local farmers, food vendors and council employees are the actors. The Phi Ta Khon Project reassembles a video image of Dansai through a series of displacements—orchestrated twists of context and materials, challenging their traditional roles and meanings.

Images courtesy of artist and GRANTPIRRIE.