Teochew Paper Offering Collection Project
Field Archive · Participatory Research · Diasporic Visual Culture©️陈谊菲
Project Type
Participatory Folk Research / Visual Archive / Diasporic Cultural MappingTime & Location
2024–ongoing
Chaoshan region, China
Singapore and overseas Teochew communities
Initiated by
Escape Art Club (EAC)
Co-Initiator & Research Collaboration
Chen Yifei
PhD Candidate, Design Culture Planning Laboratory
Chiba University, Japan
Role
Project Initiator
International Academic Liaison
Cai Boxuan (Boosen Tsai)
Background
For many Teochew people living away from home, the smell of burning joss paper—the faint, metallic scent of silver ash—is often one of the most persistent sensory memories tied to festivals, rituals, and family gatherings.
In Chaoshan, paper offerings are not merely ritual consumables. They form a complex vernacular system of visual design, material culture, belief practice, and regional aesthetics, deeply embedded in everyday life. While these objects are frequently dismissed as superstition or reduced to functional ritual tools, their forms, patterns, names, and modes of use reveal highly localised knowledge structures.
As Teochew communities migrated across Southeast Asia, paper offerings travelled with them—gradually transforming in form and meaning. Today, there exist multiple “Teochews”, both within China and across the diaspora, each carrying its own evolving paper traditions.
Project Description
The Teochew Paper Offering Collection Project was initiated as an open, participatory research initiative aimed at documenting and comparing paper offering forms across regions.
The project combines:
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Grassroots image collection
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Location-based documentation
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Shared annotation and discussion
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Academic dialogue with researchers specialising in ritual paper and folk belief
Through a collaborative digital archive, contributors from different regions are invited to upload photographs of paper offerings encountered in daily life, temples, shops, and rituals—along with information on place, naming, usage, and local variations.
Rather than treating paper offerings as static artefacts, the project frames them as living, adaptive visual systems, shaped by migration, commerce, language, and belief. The methodology consciously avoids folklorisation or moral judgement, focusing instead on comparison, classification, and cultural continuity.
Academic Exchange & Methodology
The project is developed in close dialogue with Japanese folk culture and ritual paper studies, particularly through collaboration with a researcher based at Chiba University. This exchange situates Chaoshan paper offerings within a broader East Asian research tradition, where ritual paper has long been studied as material culture rather than superstition.
This comparative framework informs:
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Pattern categorisation
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Terminology mapping
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Functional analysis across regions
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Understanding of diasporic transformation
Outcomes (Ongoing)
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Creation of a shared, open-access digital database of Teochew paper offerings
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Documentation of regional naming differences and usage methods
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Visual archive supporting future exhibitions, publications, and research
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Activation of community-based cultural participation across borders
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Strengthening connections between grassroots observation and academic study