Wen-You Cai: Minnan Exit
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Author: Cai, Wen-You
Since 2015, Wen-You Cai has returned multiple times to her parents' hometown of Quanzhou, Fujian, to attend the funerals of relatives. In this photo series, she endeavours to both document the ceremonies, and to explore and confront her rich, complex and bewildering experience of them. The work becomes at once a family album, a curated collection of photographs, an unfinished journey of discovery, and a chronicle of Wen-You's reconciliation with her mortality.The ceremonies in the Minnan region unfold like grand dramas in which Wen-You is both an observer and a participant. Throughout, she is enveloped in the unknown; everything seems meticulously arranged. Amid the overwhelming grief of losing loved ones, there exists a feeling of confusion, and taking photographs was a way for her to engage in the funeral process. To demystify these subjects, Wen-You interviewed a funeral director who provides comprehensive “one-stop services,” a monk who hosts Buddhist ceremonies and a folklorist of Minnan rituals. New York–based artist Wen-You Cai (born 1989) is the founder of Special Special and the author of When You Make No Art, a memoir about growing up with her father, artist Cai Guo-Qiang.
ISBN 9798989017010. te editions. pb. 192 pages. 280 colour ills. 27.3 x 21 cm.
available
Since 2015, Wen-You Cai has returned multiple times to her parents' hometown of Quanzhou, Fujian, to attend the funerals of relatives. In this photo series, she endeavours to both document the ceremonies, and to explore and confront her rich, complex and bewildering experience of them. The work becomes at once a family album, a curated collection of photographs, an unfinished journey of discovery, and a chronicle of Wen-You's reconciliation with her mortality.The ceremonies in the Minnan region unfold like grand dramas in which Wen-You is both an observer and a participant. Throughout, she is enveloped in the unknown; everything seems meticulously arranged. Amid the overwhelming grief of losing loved ones, there exists a feeling of confusion, and taking photographs was a way for her to engage in the funeral process. To demystify these subjects, Wen-You interviewed a funeral director who provides comprehensive “one-stop services,” a monk who hosts Buddhist ceremonies and a folklorist of Minnan rituals. New York–based artist Wen-You Cai (born 1989) is the founder of Special Special and the author of When You Make No Art, a memoir about growing up with her father, artist Cai Guo-Qiang.
ISBN 9798989017010. te editions. pb. 192 pages. 280 colour ills. 27.3 x 21 cm.
available