Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In his project
Community Fire, the photographer Zhang Xiao takes a local, hometown look at Shehuo (社火), a Chinese Spring Festival tradition celebrated in rural northern Chinese communities, including temple fairs, dragon dances, and storytelling. Shehuo--literally, "community fire"--is devoted to the worship of land and fire, and boasts a history of many thousands of years. During the festival, people hold ceremonies, pray for the next year's good harvest, and confer blessings of peace and safety for all family members.
However, what was once a heterogeneous cultural tradition with myriad regional variations has largely become a tourist-facing, consumption-oriented enterprise. In the early 2000s, Shehuo received an "intangible cultural heritage" designation from the People's Republic of China, resulting in increased funding in exchange for greater government involvement. While transforming the practitioners' relation to Shehuo, this change expresses itself most visually in the way Qing dynasty-era costumes and props have been replaced with newer, cheaper products from online shopping websites. Zhang's photographs capture how these mass-produced substitutions have transformed the practice of Shehuo. Through a colorful and fantastical blend of portraiture and ephemera that documents the blurred edges between the everyday and the absurd, Community Fire is a dynamic visual exploration of one of China's oldest traditions.
Copublished by Aperture and Peabody Museum Press
Synopsis
A vivid portrait of the centuries-old Chinese Spring Festival by a leading contemporary Chinese photographer
Dynamic vision of cultural shifts occurring in rural Chinese communities in the digital age
Publication coincides with a solo exhibition at Harvard University in spring 2023
Features texts in English and Chinese