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Festival

When:Sep 2007 (annual)
Where:Luang Prabang
Photo credit to Serena Davies. A view of the Royal Chapel, Luang Prabang
This Buddhist festival celebrates and remembers the spirits of the dead each year in Luang Prabang. During the festival, offerings are presented to Buddhist monks, mostly of food but sometimes clothes as well. On the final day of the festival, which is always the Full Moon, every family makes their way to a temple to make offerings to the deceased.
It is especially important to give offerings to the deceased a year after a person has died and the festival is similar in this respect to the Japanese festival of Obon. In both festivals, the Buddha's exhortation to honour the dead and present them with offerings is observed. To forego these familial duties to the dead has disastrous consequences - if the spirit does not receive offerings, then it will bring the living bad luck.

A good place to be for the Festival of the Dead is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Luang Prabang. During the festival, the Mekong is jammed with amazing gold and red boats, beautifully carved, with snake-heads for prows. The snakes are known as nagas and local beliefs take them to be water spirits which live in seven points of the river around Luang Prabang. The naga spirits snatch small children to be witnesses to their gloriously ornate weddings, said to take place at the bottom of the river.

The naga also appears in Buddhist literature when the God Ananta comes out of a pond when the Buddha is sitting contemplating. A storm is imminent and just as the first raindrops fall, Ananta slithers out of the lake, coils its body for the Buddha to sit upon and then spreads its cobra hood to form an umbrella for the Enlightened One. For this reason, the boats are sacred and are normally kept inside the temple precincts.

Each temple has its own parish equivalent. During the festival, 40 men from each temple-parish volunteer to race in their temple's boats against men from different areas.


Lao Public Holidays
New Year 1-Jan
Army National Day 20-Jan
Makhabusa Day 8-Feb
Women International Day 8-Mar
Lao Popular Revolutionary Party Day 22-Mar
Lao Buddhist New Year 13-16-Apr
Labor International Day 1-May
Visakhabusa Day 7-May
Child International Day 1-Jun
Khao Phansa Day 5-Jul
Constitution Day 15-Aug
Khao Padab Din Day 18-Aug
Power Seizing Day 23-Aug
Khao Salak Day 2-Sep
Oak Phansa Day 2-Oct
Boat Racing Festival Day 3-Oct
Teacher National Day 7-Oct
That Luang Festival Day 31-Oct
National Day 2-Dec


The Quiet in the Land Art and Education Project (October 6-11, 2006)

October 7, 2006 at 2 PM: Official opening of contemporary art exhibitions at the Luang Prabang National Museum in Laos

THE QUIET IN THE LAND art and education project invited between 2004 and 2006 more than 35 artists and scholars from the Lao PDR, the Mekong Region, and elsewhere to visit Luang Prabang, Laos and collaborate with a wide range of local community members. The project is funded by a devoted group of individuals, foundations, and government agencies from several countries. For more information on the project, please visit our website at www.thequietintheland.com.

From October 6 to October 11, 2006 THE QUIET IN THE LAND is organizing in Luang Prabang an event with many of its participants (artists, scholars, educators) who came to Luang Prabang as part of our residency program. We have also invited many of our supporters.

The program of these five days will consist of the openings of the exhibitions, a workshop for the participants, the launching of our Limited Edition, celebrations, and visits to the 24 monasteries as part of Boun Ok Pansa.  The Quiet in the Land has been collaborating and supporting, for the past few years, the 24 monasteries of UNESCO’s World Heritage Site Protected Area to encourage the creativity around this typical Luang Prabang festival.

We wanted this event to coincide with this very special festival.  During the rainy season, which lasts about three months, the monks traditionally remain in their monasteries.  At the end of this period of retreat, Luang Prabang celebrates a Festival of Light (Boun Ok Pansa), in which all the monasteries and houses in the city are lit throughout one night with lanterns made of bamboo and paper. In the previous days, monks and novices, families, and other groups of lay people start making decorations, bamboo boats, and rafts of different sizes.  After a ceremony of blessings at Vat Xieng Thong, the fireboats float downstream.

The contemporary art exhibitions are at the LUANG PRABANG NATIONAL MUSEUM (former Royal Palace) in the newly restored temporary exhibition rooms around the inner courtyard, as well as in The House of Guards (behind the museum) from October 7, 2006 to April 2007.

The official opening ceremony is on October 7, 2006 at 2 PM in the presence of the Governor of Luang Prabang.  Exhibitions and projects are by artists Janine Antoni, Hans Georg Berger, Ann Hamilton, Manivong Khattiyarat, Dinh Q. Lê and Nithakhong Somsanith, Vong Phaophanit, Shahzia Sikander, Allan Sekula, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.

THE MEDITATION BOAT by participating artist Ann Hamilton will be launched at the stairs of Vat Xieng Thong in the presence of Sathou Phra Onekeo Sitthivong, Abbot of Vat Pak Khane and Vat Xieng Thong Monasteries on Monday, October 9 at 4 PM.ÂÃÃÆâ€ââ