“I am a student at Luang Prabang Souphanouvong University. I started photography when I was 15, with no idea of technique at all. Since you can’t find good quality film or labs to process them in anymore, I turned to digital, which is also much cheaper. I was born in the village of Houyman. I belong to the Hmong ethnic group, whose culture is based on the world of the spirits. When I was three or four I first heard the elders talk about them – stories to deter us from being disobedient. I could see the spirits clearly in my mind. What made it even scarier was that when someone died in the village, we knew a spirit was out there somewhere and we were afraid it might attack us. Recently, coming back from working in the fields, I saw shadows in the smoke of a roadside fire. They were distorted figures caught by my headlights. They didn’t look real, but rather like the spirits I had imagined as a child. Since then I have worked in those same conditions, far away from town, at night. My intention is to lead viewers into a world they can only see in their minds, the world of spirits.” Ka Xiong
Françoise Huguier, curator
Text from the catalogue-book “Photoquai”, co-edited by Musée du Quai Branly- Actes-Sud
