Photographs and Words by ShuoShuo Xu
Eternal Mongolia: A Call from the Ancestors was born from my pilgrimage across the Mongolian steppe. As an artist of Mongolian descent and a shamanic heir, I traveled there not as a visitor, but as someone returning to a landscape tied to family and ancestral tradition.
At the World Shaman Conference in Ulaanbaatar last year, I observed shamanic rituals where participants used movement and sound to enter trance states and communicate with the spirit world. Shamans from across the globe took part in the ceremonies. I then traveled with Mongolia’s chief shaman, Byampadorj Dondog, to Zuunkharaa to continue documenting their practices.
This work is about people and their rituals. It serves as a study of what exists between the customs themselves and the quotidian rhythms of daily life. But to me, Eternal Mongolia: A Call from the Ancestors is not just a project. It is a return to land and to our ancestral voice.
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Inside a New Generation’s Return to Mongolian Shamanism
Inside a New Generation’s Return to Mongolian Shamanism
