Moken sea nomads

With the British Museum, the CNRS and the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Laurent Parienti photographed the bo lobung, the shamanic ceremony of the Moken, on Koh Surin in Thailand. Ethnographic work in the service of an endangered culture.

An assignment for the British Museum

For years, Laurent Parienti has maintained a deep bond with the Moken, sea nomads of the Mergui Archipelago between Myanmar and Thailand. That trust made possible, in 2025, a collaboration with the British Museum’s Endangered Material and Knowledge Programme, together with the CNRS anthropology laboratory, the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle and Université Paris Cité.

The assignment brought together researchers Jacques Ivanoff and Maxime Boutry, museologist Fabienne Galangau-Quérat and Jean Chicoteau, in charge of communication.

The aim: to photograph the bo lobung, "raising the spirit poles", the Moken’s principal ritual, before it disappears with the last keepers of the tradition.

Bo lobung, the ritual of the sea nomads

The ceremony marks the passage from the dry season, the time of nomadic life at sea, to the rainy season, the time of staying put. Behind this turn of the calendar lies great complexity.

The lobung, the spirit poles, represent at once the ideal Moken family, the ancestors and their memory, relations with neighbouring societies, and the passing on of knowledge.

Despite decades of study, the ritual has not given up all its secrets. This documentation was undertaken to better understand its place in Moken social life.

Photographing the intangible

To photograph a shamanic ceremony is to document intangible heritage while respecting the sacred. Laurent Parienti worked with rigour:

• gradually becoming part of the community over several weeks;
• with discretion, never disturbing the ritual;
• leaving out nothing of the ceremony’s stages;
• in close collaboration with the CNRS researchers.

The reportage follows the ritual over several days: gathering sacred wood in the Koh Surin forest, carving the poles, preparations and purifications, the collective ceremony, moments of trance and invocation of the spirits, and village life throughout.

The Moken, a people under threat

Sometimes called "sea gypsies", the Moken are one of the last sea-nomad peoples of Southeast Asia. They spent most of the year on their boats, the kabang, coming ashore only in the rainy season.

Their culture is now under threat: settlement imposed by the Burmese and Thai governments, the loss of fishing grounds, restricted access to territorial waters, the erosion of knowledge and the rapid acculturation of the young. These photographs therefore carry heritage value: they keep the memory of a culture that is fading.

A scientific collaboration

The British Museum’s EMKP documents and preserves endangered practices and knowledge around the world. The Moken assignment is part of it.

• British Museum (London): coordination and funding
• CNRS and its anthropology laboratory: research
• Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris): ethnological expertise
• Université Paris Cité: academic work

A long-term commitment

This assignment is the culmination of many visits: since 2017, Laurent Parienti has returned regularly to the Moken. This patience, built on respect and immersion, produces images far from the tourist gaze: the truth of the rituals, the emotion of the participants, knowledge passing between generations.

Between documentation and art

Ethnographic photography must be rigorous (every gesture, every object), human (emotion, spirituality), beautiful (to move people and raise awareness) and respectful (showing a people with dignity).

These images serve the scientific archives of the British Museum and the CNRS, publications and exhibitions, and help make Moken culture and its fragility better known.

From ethnography to the corporate world

Patience, observation, discretion, a search for authenticity: what Laurent Parienti learned among the Moken, he brings to every corporate commission. Whether it is a shamanic ceremony in Thailand or a craft tradition in Provence, the approach is the same: understand, observe, reveal.

Cultural institution, museum, foundation or company in the South of France: this eye is at the service of your communication.