WONG SAMAR

(2016), HD digital video, stereo sound, 5:17mins.

Wong Samar, engages with the spectral evidence of Bali’s 1965 mass killings of alleged communists and the ways in which this silenced history continues to register and trouble the present. The video narrates the story of a man who witnessed killings in his village during 1965 and since then is haunted by the presence of spirits in his life. This narrative, which was drawn from a study on mental illness in Bali, examines Balinese beliefs around wrongful deaths (salah pati) and how spirits can have a very real affect on the living.