update: link to video & behind-the-scenes gallery added.

Bali, the quin­tes­sence of a rich spir­i­tual & cul­tural com­mu­nity is empir­i­cally known through­out her his­tory as the land where peo­ple come as tourists, but often leav­ing as artists. Some of the world’s most well known painters, musi­cians, pho­tog­ra­phers — artists — have spent time and at some point of their lives, lived on the island. There’s that qual­ity about Bali that attracts souls of any kind.

John Stanmeyer, a mem­ber of the VII photo agency spent five years liv­ing there, dur­ing which, through the lens of his holga, he cap­tured the enchant­ing life & spir­its of the island’s liv­ing, breath­ing & invis­i­ble souls, and pro­duced this excit­ing new title:

Spirits are every­where in Bali. Trees, tem­ples, moun­tains, stones, water appear sacred to the Balinese, all serv­ing as a hand reach­ing out and into the oth­er­world of ances­tors and gods and the mael­strom of good and evil. […] This body of work stresses the his­toric­ity of spir­i­tual life of Bali, con­sist­ing of deeply lay­ered imagery that is wit­nessed, under­stood and explained in full by few, yet prac­ticed by millions.

The book will come in reg­u­lar & spe­cial lim­ited edi­tion (pric­ing to be announced) and the first edi­tion is cur­rently wrap­ping up pro­duc­tion in Jakarta where an exclu­sive behind-the-scene gallery has been pub­lished, also up is a short video fea­ture on VII Multimedia.