“2023 Halloween Animal Funeral”: ReRoot Asia Fund Grantee 2023 🌱

Another successful story from our ReRoot Asia Fund Grantee 2023 is here, and we can’t wait to share it with you! 🥳

Last year, people on the streets of two cities in Taiwan — Taipei and Tainan — were spooked in an unexpected way 🎃👻

That was because Herbibobo Creative Studio, one of our grantees, took to the streets to perform the “2023 Halloween Animal Funeral”, a concept that offered interactive activities aiming to encourage passersby to rethink their choices in animal consumption.

Herbibobo Creative Studio and their team of volunteers wore masks of different animals and held traditional “memorial photos,” symbolizing a funeral for dead animals, while marching through the areas of Xinyi Business District, Taipei, and Chikan Business District in Tainan.

Soon after, they stopped at a designated spot and began to offer handmade fake gun props (made from toy banknotes) to anyone who was interested in participating in the activity. If they choose to eat animals, they would need to point the “gun” at the volunteers representing farmed animals. This interactive activity, named "Order”, recreated the consequences of our choices in a simplified yet powerful way, helping the participants draw stronger connections between their consumption choices and the consequences on the animals’ lives.

On the other hand, the volunteers also offered plant-based snacks to everyone as a way to represent the alternative of a non-violent lifestyle. The participants were also invited to start their own vegan journey, as they were shown that they could live a vibrant life full of unlimited choices while refraining from taking the lives of others.

The events were reported to be successful! 🎉 With more volunteers than the previous year, they managed to reach a larger audience with more diverse backgrounds. The project has achieved its objective of utilizing art and literature as a tool to spread awareness for farmed animals 😻🙌