A New Message from the Underground
Venue
National Human Rights Museum
Year
2018
Location
Taipei, Taiwan
Ｍaterial
Audio [Chinese], 11'33",
5 chapters, installation.
Transfer paper, wood, letter, ready-made, mixed media
The historical sites and architectures of White Terror in the city center have gradually been
covered, demolished and bleached with urban development and therefore no longer exist. We
choose the space hidden underground to open up a warehouse for historical memory where
people had once chosen to be silent.
Under the manhole covers is an archive room for letters to family members written in prison. The archive not only conveys the social reality that signifies
a specific era, but also opens an interactive space through the writing of personal life history, allowing people to enter and join the conversation, to write and to deliver.
If a manhole cover is a stumbling block on the road that points out the entrance of the underground archive room, then the messages sent from the archive are stones thrown at people to disturb their daily life. The text of messages in this plan imitates the letters victims wrote down during captivity or even the dead letters. Through the Location Based Service (LTS) that sends instant messages, the plan makes people who enter a certain area receive unexpected messages, to promote awareness of history and memory and create public discussions. We intend to disrupt the time sequence and displace the information of two different generations to create an illusion of a parallel in time and space. On the other hand, the manhole cover, with its small presence as an indicator on the ground, also collects and heals historical wounds in the past through the negative space under people’s soles.
Photo © Working Hard. Photographed by Joseph HO.