A man who died from burning himself comes to a paper house, where Golden Boy and Jade Lady await to take him to the Western Paradise. He climbs up to the Hua-Shan-Qiang, and his soul goes through a fable of ethnicity.
Fable can be a tiny imprint of a character; it can also be a profound political narrative. Included in its core are the shared history and consciousness of all Taiwanese. SU Yu-Hsien used these to connect folk traditions, ceremonial rituals, language and symbols, creating a unique narrative body in this work.
“Spirit is ghost, it is within a fire that burns everything, but it also reflects everyone’s desires and illusions.”
SU’s masterful skills interweave real-world and imaginary characters, turning the increasingly vulgar funeral ceremonies in Taiwan into an innovation of artistic language through interdisciplinary media and cultural thinking that co-construct a journey to the underworld with classical Taiwanese language. By comparing the realms of the living and the dead, Hua-Shan-Qiang gives a new perspective of the history, politics and culture of colonized Taiwan with videos, installations and folk paper crafts. [The 12th Taishin Arts Award Exhibition, Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture]
