In what ways do our social and economic systems shape our daily lives? What traces do these systems leave behind as they pass into history? To any member of a modern, industrialized society, these questions are important, but for those from outside the developed, Western world — those whose national history is a more multifarious one — the questions take on a particular significance. The route to modernity and industrialization for many societies is tortuous and lengthy; colonialism, fascism, industrial communism, consumer capitalism — the different social and economic systems tried throughout the developing world as the ticket to modernization — have come and gone, but as societies don one system and doff another, the traces these systems leave behind linger.
Chasing the Ghost of Karl Marx is a collection of photo essays exploring socialist and formerly socialist nations in the developing, post-colonial world. It examines the physical, cultural, and social influence that communism, consumer capitalism, and indigenous culture have had on contemporary life in these nations. The Ghost is in an abandoned underground bunker, The Ghost is in a privatized copper mine, it is in city planning, in public parks, in storefronts and in signage. The Ghost is in fashion, in graffiti, in music, in art.
This website is a sketchbook for Chasing the Ghost of Karl Marx, where images, text, organization and layouts will be published and revised on an ongoing basis. The pages accessible from the menu at the top represent more completed sections of the project with accompanying writing, while the blog section houses images-in-progress, often posted from the road. Visitors can post comments on the About/Feedback page. Currently, the project contains images from Mongolia, Vietnam and Cambodia, with plans to add Laos and Burma in the coming months.
-JTW