The Day of the Dead




2020 
performance

Descendant of Arachne
The Venue, Taipei, Taiwan

"What is the greatest miracle in the world?"
"Every day, people pass away, yet we live as if we are immortal. That is the greatest miracle."
                                                                                                                                             --Mahabharata

Within the video performance, I wore grave clothes for a day in my daily life. It is what traditional Taiwanese people would garb upon death. On this day, I used  paper offerings  as my personal belongings. These paper offerings  were burnt by the living relatives and friends as offerings to the dead. Within my portfolio, “A Day of the Dead”, one of the implications of the dead is the representation of a person wearing death. The other meaning is a living person who has yet to realize he/she will die.






Before and after the performance, all paper offerings used were photographed and documented as images. Through the process of viewing and using these offerings, the funeral industry chain, along with the text, designs, and material qualities influenced by Chinese manufacturing, are revealed in the visuals.










Documentation :
Kai Chieh Chang