Zhang Xu Zhan was born in 1988 as the son of a family that has been trading for centuries in traditional paper figures used in Taiwan for ritual ceremonies or funerals. He continues this tradition in his animated films, sculptures, and video installations. Zhang Xu Zhan has built models of luxury houses and gigantic paper dolls. His main works include his stop-motion films, for which he makes filigree figures and landscapes out of papier-mâché. In them, Zhang Xu Zhan creates a fantastic cosmos populated by mythical creatures, singing animals and plants, and nature spirits, and dominated by ancient rituals—a world that is at once apocalyptic and fairytale-like.