Funerals under Neon Lights

2014 - Photography (Photography)

47 x 70.5 cm each

Tomoko Kikuchi

The series Funerals under Neon Lights by Tomoko Kikuchi focuses on how transgender people’s ritual became a vital part of funerals in rural China. Funerals in China have diversified to very unique forms, especially in rural areas. Shot in Sichuan province, Guizhou Province, and Chongqing between 2014 to 2017, the three photographs: Liangzi offering prayer, Chongqing , Liangzi at the funeral, Sichuan province , and Bereaved family at the funeral, Sichuan province feature funerals where eccentric performances by transgender performers, little people, young female performers and singers dressing bikini costume, magicians and acrobatics performers take place under gaudy neon light. This series could not have been possible without the long-term investment of the artist in building trust and intimacy with the LGBTQ community over the last fifteen years. The series of portrays images of transgender people who take on essential roles within unique traditional funeral scenes in rural areas in southern China. The exposure techniques of the photographs show a strong contrast of lightness and darkness and the splendor that illuminates differ strikingly with death, casting a certain captivating melancholy. Visiting funeral ceremonies to console the dead and the living, and guiding them towards heaven, dancing, singing, and throwing a feast is, in fact, a custom one can encounter in remote areas of China where the central government’s modernization has yet to have fully taken effect. This unique custom is found in some parts of Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam. The contrast between these moments of death and the neon lights with unique performances highlight the evolving concept of ‘’life and death’’ for people whose lifestyles have changed with the transformation and modernization in contemporary society. These specific funerals are mostly found today in areas influenced by old Chinese cultural traditions and located at the borders of mainland China and surrounding countries like Vietnam. These photographs highlight how transgender people’s bodies and performances safeguard cultural traditions of funerals as well as define the time and place of life and death. These unique forms of funerals rethink Asian tradition beyond the patriarchal oppression of gender differences. What leads the ritual act by transgender people is summoning their role as the connector to surpass boundaries. Since transgender people appear to cross the boundary of sexual dichotomy, and thus life and death, this work reveals how liberal and unbiased gender perception and gender-queer culture is alive within Asian tradition, while modern society has been reducing gender norms through drawn borders. This scene also deviates from an understanding of Asian tradition as typical heterosexual patriarchy and enables us to acquire the liminality of tradition beyond the limits of Asian modernization. This project was supported by the Abigail Cohen Fellowship in Documentary Photography, Magnum foundation & Asia Society (ChinaFile).

Tomoko Kikuchi is a Japanese-born photographer. Kikuchi has investigated the impact of rapid social change of mainland China on notions of gender, family, and social development as a photographer over fifteen years. Kikuchi visualizes the energy that crashes out of conflicts, and the human power to overcome contradiction and complexity in the world. Kikuchi’s photography, video, and video installation works closely observe the social realities of marginalized communities. They examine themes such as gender, life and death, war and history as accumulation of individual memory, focusing on the people who live in the cracks of a dynamically transforming society. I and I (2005-2013) and Lost Boundaries (2012) are a series of photographs and video works about young Chinese LGBTQI+ people who wander about the unclear boundaries separating men and women, where big changes are occurring in the sexuality of urban youth. Kikuchi’s work often highlights underrepresented Chinese queer communities.

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