Evil Sprit Banishment

作品賞析

PAN Hsiao-Hsia has spent many years with the people of Orchid Island and photographed many images of life in the island. His anthologies express his emotional attachment to the islands, and often show the people of Lanyu looking unabashedly at the camera, revealing the trust that PAN Hsiao-Hsia has built with those he is photographing. The Evil Spirit Banishment captures a scene of the Canoe Launching Ceremony of the Tao People in 1988. The men in the photograph are performing the warrior’s ceremonial dance to banish evil spirits. Their painted faces, grimacing expressions, clenched fists, tensed bodies, and bulging muscles point to their courageous warrior spirit ready for battle. Such directness and sincerity are the hallmarks of PAN Hsiao-Hsia’s photographs, an intimate and truthful moment of the Tao’s local customs of eradicating evil spirits from their midst.