Synopsis

The line between life and death is deeply imprinted in my childhood, I remember a vivid memory of sunny days, a bucket of water almost full and a half-submerged new mouse in a cage wanting freedom, until it was exhausted and surrendered to inevitable death. The music used in this work is the German folk song Ach, wie ist’s möglich dann. In Taiwan folk culture the song was often performed at funerals, an interesting and absurd contrast to the song’s original use in the 1935 German literary film as the soundtrack for a love story. So Zhang choreographs a dance performed to this German folk song about death.

Zhang Xu Zhan

Zhang Xu Zhan (1988) was born into a centurial ancestral paper-crafting family. The Hsin Hsin Paper Offering Store specializes in making paper sculptures for religious rituals or funerals. His works are full of bizarre, absurd grotesque image expansion, intent to discuss the society and contemporary survival experience, and expand cinema experience, contemporary art. Recently he won Deutsche Bank’s Artists of the Year award 2021 for the collection his animation and video art. His film Si So Mi (2019) won a special award in Animafest Zagreb.