The Ghost Festival in Taiwan's Keelung is a celebration that highlights the spirit of universal salvation, embracing and bringing together the diverse and unseen presences on this land. Every year on the 4th day of the 7th lunar month, the residents of Zhengsha Community hold a universal salvation ceremony at the French Cemetery by the harbor to console the foreign souls who passed away in a foreign land. This festival not only challenges my traditional understanding of the ritual's worship objects but also presents an interesting twist: it is said that this cemetery is actually a cenotaph, and the remains of those French soldiers have long since disappeared. However, this is merely a rumor, and no one has been able to prove what exactly is buried in the soil beneath. For the local residents, what may or may not lie in the cemetery is perhaps no longer significant. Even though the remains might be gone, everything about them seems to have been planted in the soil as a form of conscious memory, silently persisting.
Keelung's Ghost Festival is like a flickering candle, illuminating the historical roots of the area and connecting the intricate ties between the living and the dead. The memories planted in the land take root and sprout during the festival. The glow of these candles seems to melt away the temporal differences between humans and spirits, burning through the dividing line between the two. Everything here appears real, yet it also exists in a state of ambiguity and elusiveness, with time and perception shifting inadvertently. I attempt to capture this scene through low frame rate filming, recording the here and now, yet also the timelessness of the setting. I aim to allow everything here to be observed as if in a static image, but one that slowly spreads, flows, and transforms within. Much like the cemetery's evolution over the past century, everything changes imperceptibly. The beings we worship and offer sacrifices to during the ritual coexist in these unnoticed moments, quietly revered and remembered by subtle perceptions.
