Zhang Xiao: Community Fire

In his project Community Fire, the photographer Zhang Xiao takes a local, hometown look at the subject of Shehuo (社
火
), the Northern Chinese Spring Festival, which includes carnivals and celebrations such as temple fairs, dragon dances, and storytelling. Shehuo--literally, "community fire"--is a tradition devoted to the worship of land and fire within rural northern Chinese communities, and boasts a history of many thousands of years. During the Shehuo festival period, people gather to hold ceremonies, pray for the next year's good harvest, drive away monsters and spirits, and confer the blessings of peace and safety for all family members. But, following an official designation as "intangible cultural heritage," costumes and props once handed down since the Qing dynasty in the seventeenth century have been replaced with products from newly formed online shopping websites. Zhang's photographs capture how these mass-produced replacements have transformed the practice of Shehuo into a tourist-facing entertainment and consumption-oriented enterprise. Through a colorful and fantastical blend of portraiture and ephemera, which 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