Astunning look at the state of the underground Catholic Church in China's Sha'anxi Province is now being shown in the work of Chinese photographer Yang Yankang (
Since the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci first began converting Chinese to Catholicism 400 years ago, Catholics in the country have often been on the receiving end of the country's more brutal upheavals, as representatives of a pernicious foreign influence.
Some of the worst oppression has occurred under the current communist regime. Ever suspicious of religion and potentially disruptive organizations, the CCP instituted its own Patriotic Church independent of the Vatican.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TIVAC
The move forced up to 8 million Catholics, staunchly loyal to the full authority of the Pope, to move their faith underground, mainly in villages beyond the reach or daily concern of leaders in Beijing.
This documentary photo series has won Yang international recognition, with some photos from this project being displayed at the "Vibrant Asia" photography exhibition at Japan's Kyoto National Museum in 1996. This show is the first time, however, that Yang's work is to be shown in Taiwan.
The harsh living conditions in the villages of Sha'anxi pose great challenges to villagers' faith. However, when Yang, himself a Catholic, visited Sha'anxi with his priest friends, he saw groups of people who were devoted to their faith, undaunted by material needs and willing to spend what little they had to go on pilgrimage.
This inspired Yang to record and present those villagers' way of life, their perseverance and their devotion. Although he hails from Shandong Province, Yang said in a telephone interview with the Taipei Times from his home in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, that this project could not have been undertaken there because of pervasive control over religious activities by China's Communist Party.
Spending Christmas and the Chinese New Year for the past several years in the villages, Yang's friendship with the villagers, as well as his Catholic beliefs, helped him capture the essence of the people's lives. Unlike other photographers working on the same subject, like Li Xiaoming (李小明), Yang does not see himself primarily as a photographer working on a project, but as a fellow worshipper, which gives the photos a natural intimacy.
One photo shows a blind man facing the camera on a mountain track during a ritual held every May in which believers go to a mountain to pray and commemorate the persecution and crucifixion of Jesus.
Yang vividly remembers the blind man he photographed.
"He did not hesitate at all before agreeing to let me take his photo. As he was turning around to face the camera, he tried so hard to open his eyes, but he's completely blind," Yang said. "That moved me a lot because he was blind and alone, and it must have been very tough for him to join the trip all the way into the mountains and keep up with the rest of the procession."
In selecting photos for the exhibition, Yang sought to present a life cycle in a religious context, one that begins with a grandmother figure holding a crucifix, then switches to infants being baptized and children playing under the church cross, and next shows adults' life of prayers and pilgrimages and finally an anniversary mass for the dead, where the cycle of life begins again.
"Demonstrating the Natural Form of a Religion" is an exhibition not to be missed for anyone interested in either documentary photography or those who want to get a glimpse of an aspect of contemporary China that its rulers would much rather not expose to the outside world.
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