An unflinching photographic journey into the heart of Asia’s most intense and sacred rituals.
Over the course of a year-long odyssey from Indonesia to Japan, and onward through the Trans-Siberian Railway, Belgian photographer Vincent Peal immersed himself in communities where devotion runs deep and tradition holds firm. From the trance-induced self-mutilations of the Tatung in Borneo, to the searing acts of sacrifice during Malaysia's Thaipusam festival, to the haunting cremation rites on the banks of the Ganges—this book captures ceremonies where the body becomes a vessel for faith, pain, and transcendence.
Combining anthropological insight with raw, journalistic presence, Rites and Ceremonies of South East Asia offers a powerful visual exploration of belief, sacrifice, and spiritual ecstasy.
Vincent Peal became known within the electro rock formation Emma Peal for which this autodidact was also in charge of the visual of this unique and uncompromising group. Vincent Peal then swapped the microphone for a camera with an equally rare and radical vision of today's world. He made a documentary film on the marginalized living in the streets of Brussels and shoots several video clips in Super 8 in New York, Paris, Berlin ... He also participated in the Shanghai World Expo with his photos on the slums of Bombay and on the problem of pollution of beaches in West Africa.
