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Books
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INSIDE, THE CHELSEA HOTEL PHOTOGRAPHED BY JULIA CALFEE
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Spirits and Ghosts: Journeys Through MongoliaPhotographs by Julia CalfeePublished by powerHouse Books New York 76 large format photos, format 12" x 9" "These journeys in Mongolia took me 9,000 miles over five years. The common element in all these voyages, even stronger that the ghosts, were the spirits who live high and free with this land where nature still brings mortals to their knees." - Julia Calfee "Julia Calfee reveals the supernatural and Shamans who bridge the void between the worlds of the living and that of the spirits...These landscapes move you to imagine this, and that the Monkh Khoh Tenger (Eternal Blue Heaven), which once reigned over earth protecting the Mongol people, is hearing their wishes and receiving their communions" - 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. "Although spirits and ghost are reality in Mongolia, they are nevertheless the object of a wealth of speculation and open to differing interpretations - a fact that makes the title of Julia Calfee's book on Mongolia particularly appropriate" - Dr. Sendenjav Dulam, National University of Mongolia The book is available at fine booksellers and cultural centers worldwide, including The Rubin Museum New York City ICP International Center of Photography New York Barnes & Noble Borders Amazon.com |
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Honeycomb GlacierPublication of recent works includes photos and essay titled Honeycomb Glacier in Stone and Water series published by Hotel Therme, Vals Switzerland.This publication is part of an ongoing multimedia project titled Songs of the Glaciers which includes a sound library of over five hundreds recordings and more than a thousand photos. "All this summer and fall 2008 I walked up and down and up again the valley of Vals. I followed the trails of the universe as I followed also the mountain ranges experiencing the strings of the cold winds, and the softness of the first falling snow, a complete metamorphosis of nature, ever-changing like the trillions of atoms which make up our atmosphere…" |
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Mountain Spirits of MongoliaJourney with a ShamanJulia Calfee This book illustrates the annual transhumance of a family of reindeer herders including a woman Shaman from where the borders of Siberia touch the northernmost tip of Mongolia to their summer grazing grounds further south, near Lake Hovsgol ("Dark Blue Pearl"). This three-week journey over rugged, isolated mountains with summits above 3,000 meters (9,000 feet), without the maps or compass, takes place in February and March, the coldest months of the year, when the average temperature drops to a chilling -40°. This small caravan comprise 29 reindeer, 35 horses, 3 dogs, an extended family of eight and myself, as a photographer and only person not living the life of a traditional reindeer herder. |
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Inside ChinaPublished by National Geographic in 2007A collective body of work featuring a selection of Julia Calfee photos in China |
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The ScavengersWe are all scavengers shifting through the garbage dump, waiting for the trucks to empty the leftovers of the world, hunting for some forgotten treasure we can call our own. Our garbage dumps are disguised, but in the municipal dump of Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia it is all out in the open. Accumulating in the 105 degrees humid heat are hills and hills of trash. This mass of rejects ferments and strange gases bubble up, mixing with the juices of discarded meant and rotten tropical fruit. These gently shaped hills, covering perhaps 10 square miles, are inhabited by people from faraway places. Illegal refugees in Malaysia who have made this dump their home. Furnished on the spot – a sofa with the springs popping up, a radio which doesn’t work, a bent parasol, a folding chair, some kid’s leftover- stuffed pink elephant. Sunday they go fishing on a huge chunk of Styrofoam in a lake, filled constantly by the sewers of Kuala Lumpur. Sometimes they wash themselves and their clothes in the sewer lake as well. On a bad day the police come and they flee their shelters deep into the highest hills of garbage where the stench is over whelming, the flies thick and the ooze up to their thighs. Day after day I come back sliding around in this sea of debris with my camera. I am greeted with smiles, asked to sit down on a folding chair and shown the finds of the day. A small ring with no stone left, an imitation Chanel bag, shoes, even a watch, newspapers, wrapping paper, piles of paper of all sorts, piously washed sheet by sheet to be ‘recycled’ elsewhere. Meanwhile the skyscrapers under construction grow taller. Under these growing shadows they explain: “We are the saviors of the world. We are the finders of what is precious before all is buried. We are the ultimate archivists.” On my last evening there the lights were already on in the city, everything else was white and grey in the evening mist. The excitement of finding treasures had died down as the garbage trucks headed slowly down the hill. The foreman came up to me. “Thank you. For you have given these people importance. No one has ever come here before to photograph them. Now they are proud.” Shortly afterwards the police came. The scavengers fled silently into the grey mist; I also fled. The dump is no longer there I have heard, the hills are now flattened by expensive apartment buildings and grass covered courtyards. Mercedes drive up the asphalt roads. The scavengers have been replaced. - Julia Calfee |
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Photogeneses, TetesPhotos by Julia CalfeePublished by Pilar i Joan Miro Foundation Palma de Mallorca, 1995 Format: 25' x 16'5" A deluxe portfolio in a limited edition of only 25 copies, signed and numbered by the artist, containing 7 color plates printed in cibachrome on aluminum, presented in its hand bound clamshell box. With an introduction from Spanish writer Jose Carlos Llop and Spanish painter Antonio Saura. |
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