2025 Douzhen Carnival: Guardians in Formation

About The Entry

This project centers on Jiajiang, a traditional Taiwanese folk performance rooted in temple festivals and religious rituals, where performers embody guardian figures responsible for protection and the dispelling of negative forces. Respecting its origins as a sacred cultural practice, the project reinterprets Jiajiang from a ritual performance system into a contemporary public festival language, framed by the curatorial concept “Guardians in Formation.” Under this concept, the design integrates ceremonial street parades, collective performances, an opening showcase, cultural markets, and blessing rituals, creating multiple entry points for public engagement. Through performance, interaction, and gamified participation, the project lowers cultural barriers and transforms Jiajiang from a role traditionally confined to religious contexts into an approachable, participatory urban cultural experience, successfully establishing a public festival with clear scale, identity, and cultural recognition.

Jiajiang is a ritual performance tradition in Taiwanese temple festivals, where performers serve as symbolic guardians tasked with protection and the dispelling of negative forces. Its form embodies a folk system shaped by centuries of continuous evolution, integrating belief, embodied movement, and symbolic imagery. Within this festival framework, these elements are expanded into a broader spectrum of contemporary cultural expression. Under the theme “Guardians in Formation,” the opening showcase combines percussion, ritualized Jiajiang footwork, acrobatics, and street dance, creating a dynamic contemporary performance language.

The event brought together over 200 performers from 20 Jiajiang troupes across Taiwan. A ceremonial parade connected urban streets, local temples, and the Chiayi Cultural and Creative Park, establishing a fluid rhythm between procession and public viewing. Taiwan’s first “Douzhen Card Machine” invited participants to draw cards, collect stamps, and exchange them for symbolic blessing tokens, encouraging active engagement and learning about each troupe. This was complemented by the large-scale mask installation Silk Resonance: Guardians Against Adversity, derived from the symbolic facial pattern system of Jiajiang figures, translating traditional visual codes into a cultural interface readable at close range. With nearly 60,000 participants, the event demonstrated its feasibility as a city-scale public cultural festival and confirmed the replicability of its cross-disciplinary collaboration model.