Spirit House

Contemporary artists of the Asian diaspora challenge the boundary between life and death through art

Copublished with the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, this book accompanies Spirit House, a significant exhibition related to the museum's Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI). A thematic exploration of the work of 33 Asian American and Asian diasporic artists, Spirit House asks the question, what does it mean to speak to ghosts, inhabit haunted spaces or enter different dimensions? Inspired by spirit houses, small devotional structures found throughout Thailand that provide shelter to the supernatural, this book considers how art can collapse the distance between the past and present, as well as between this world and the next. Here, contemporary artists reckon with the spiritual and spectral in our visual culture, question the many forms that ghosts can take and challenge data-driven, scientific methods of understanding the world around us. Featuring many previously unpublished works, this first publication of the AAAI includes an essay by preeminent Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and four ghost stories by artists included in the exhibition. Artists include: Kelly Akashi, Korakrit Arunanondchai, James Clar, Binh Danh, Dominique Fung, Pao Houa Her, Greg Ito, Tommy Kha, Heesoo Kwon, Timothy Lai, An-My Le, Dinh Q. Le, Kang Seung Lee, Tidawhitney Lek, Jarod Lew, Reagan Louie, Cathy Lu, Nina Molloy, Tammy Nguyen, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Catalina Ouyang, Maia Cruz Palileo, Namita Paul, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, Kour Pour, Jiab Prachakul, Stephanie H. Shih, Do Ho Suh, Masami Teraoka, Salman Toor, Lien Truong, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Wanxin Zhang.