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Qiān Zàng    (2015)

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Tan Kian Ming 2015: Qiān Zàng (single-channel video - 6.06 mins)

‘Qiān Zàng’ is a Taoist/ Buddhist term applies in a deliverance rite for rescuing the deceased from the hall or in a way that delivers the deceased to the Pureland. There are two different forms of this ceremony; one works with Water (for drowning victims), another works with Blood (for accidental death), which it mostly practices in south Chinese society. In term of death, the belief of burial practices is an integral part of Chinese funeral culture, which it conceptualises as a completed process of life. The scene of a cemetery is a medium or, double exposure of present-life and after-life, storage and communication, memory and illusion. Kian references the term of ‘Qiān Zàng’ in reflecting the fantasy of the after-life world through conveying an imaginary scene of ritual ceremony. 

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