About the exhibition

Funeral offerings are among the oldest remnants of Chinese civilisation. The custom of burying the deceased with food and everyday items has been observed as a tradition dating back over 3000 years. Servants, horses, house models and valuables found in tombs are important historical tokens of lifestyles in the first dynasties, such as the famous terracotta army of the first emperor Qin Shi Huang (259 to 210 BC). Moreover, in the bronze age, luxurious ritual objects for divination were used to communicate with ancestors, considered intermediaries between people and divinities. Later, from the fifth century BC, Confucianism placed filial piety at the heart of its doctrines, making it the foundation of social order.

In Taiwan, paper funeral objects (zhizha) belong to this long history while representing a local, original art. This exhibition, produced in partnership with the Taiwan Cultural Centre, presents creations from two Taipei paper studios: Hsin-Hsin and Skea. The decor seeks to highlight the poetic, sometimes exuberant, dimension of these ephemeral items, lit up and destroyed by flames.