Graduation project
Holy Pig
Yu-Chun Lo
## “I use documentary as a tool to observe and figure out what’s under the surface.”
Taiwan is home to many religious traditions. One of these is the annual Holy Pig festival, in which fattened pigs are sacrificed to honour the gods and pacify the spirits. What started as a solemn ritual has now grown to include a contest, with a prize for the person with the biggest pig. Some of the pigs can weigh as much as 1,000 kilos and the carcasses are stretched out over special metal frames to make them appear even bigger. In her documentary, ‘Holy Pig’, Yu-Chun Lo explores the changing aesthetics of this social-religious phenomenon, where size has come to be equated with sacredness.