Lo zoo delle donne giraffe: un viaggio tra i Kayan nella Tailandia del nord

Abstract

In the form of an extended travelogue combined with information relating to the recent history of the Kayan as well as to their mythology and religion, the work – based on experience during field-work in the north-west of Thailand in 2009 and 2010 – is an original contribution to knowledge in the field of the history of ethnic tourism among the Kayan. A sizable set of BW photographs – taken by the author using a 1920s Kodak box camera and a 1960s Agfa medium format camera – enriches the work, providing a rare contribution to the most experimental contemporary visual anthropology and lens-based arts. Text and images are, moreover, accompanied by a DVD containing an experimental Super-8 short by the author: "I Must Not Look You in the Eyes", a dynamic counterpart to the written and visual accounts, as well as to their specific mood.