Ovoo (2022 - Ongoing)
Ovoo is a photographic project grounded in Buryat-Mongolian shamanistic cosmology. Its title refers to the ovoo—sacred cairns or wooden totems that mark spiritually present sites across the Siberian steppe. Traditionally serving as portals to the spirit world, ovoos embody a relational worldview rooted in pre-industrial Indigenous lifeways, where land, ancestry, and ritual are inextricably linked. This project examines how these structures continue to influence cultural memory and spiritual sovereignty in a landscape marked by historical erasure.
The project is anchored in the 1930s—a decade defined by collectivisation and the dismantling of religious and cultural institutions across Buryatia and Mongolia. These years witnessed the near-total repression of shamanic and Buddhist traditions, alongside the liquidation of monasteries, ceremonial sites, and their custodians. My family history bears the imprint of this rupture. My great-granduncle, a Buddhist lama at the Aninsk Monastery, was arrested and exiled during this time. His fate remained unspoken within our family until I uncovered his archival record in 2023 at a regional archive in Buryatia. This personal discovery catalysed the project: a return to the places silenced by history, and a reckoning with the intergenerational transmissions of trauma and survival.
In response, I began creating a body of photographic work that stages encounters between landscape, memory, and loss by using a combination of self-portraiture, site-based large-format photography, and archival image manipulation.
In memory of my great grand father - Sodnom Dorzhi (1922-2011)Ovoo book spreads:
