文 / 麥書菲
The Great Journey: In Pursuit of the Ancestral Realm is the third in a series of exhibitions presented by Taiwan’s Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (KMFA) as part of its mission to explore the cross-cultural connections between Taiwan’s indigenous and Pacific Island peoples.1 Outside Taiwan it is not commonly known that this small island officially has fourteen indigenous tribes, accounting for approximately two percent of its population.2 Furthermore, there exists archaeological, anthropological and linguistic evidence which suggests that Taiwan’s indigenous peoples are ancestrally related to the Austronesian family group encompassing the Pacific Islands, including New Zealand, Polynesia and Melanesia.3 While this view is contested,4 it also has wide support within Taiwan’s pro-independence movement which regards such evidence as fundamental to its nationalist discourse in terms of legitimising its claim to national sovereignty. This ethno-cultural and political paradigm provides an essential context for the current examination of this exhibition.
The Great Journey set out to chronicle visually, through contemporary art, the cultural interconnections between Taiwan’s local indigenous artists and Māori and Pacific Islander artists based in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. According to the exhibition pamphlet, the curatorial rationale underpinning this exhibition was to ‘bear witness’ to this history of migration and cross-cultural encounter; and to explore the ‘cultural matrix’ between these artists’ works.5 Co-curated by Tseng Mei-chen and Nita Lo from the KMFA, and Jim Vivieaere, an independent curator and artist from New Zealand, this exhibition brought together a rich and eclectic mix of works in a range of media from photography and video art to wood sculpture and hand-woven textiles. The eleven artists from Taiwan and the Pacific Islands included: Anli Genu, Ruby, Sakuliu, Walis Labai and Yuma Taru; along with Virginia King, Lisa Reihana, Shane Cotton, Michel Tuffery, Greg Semu and Daniel Waswas. Most, if not all, of these Pacific artists are internationally renowned and their works have featured in major exhibitions including the Asia Pacific Triennial. In contrast, it was the first opportunity for many of Taiwan’s participating indigenous artists to exhibit their works in a public art museum and, moreover, in an international exhibition.
With the exception of Walis Labai (or Wu Diing-wu), Taiwan’s most widely recognised indigenous artist and whose works recently featured in an exhibition in Australia,6 the remaining four local artists in this exhibition have had significantly less exposure to the visual arts mainstream. This is not a reflection on the quality of their works but rather an indication of the limited opportunities available to indigenous artists in Taiwan given that their work is often categorised in Taiwan’s visual arts field as folk art or craft.7 Furthermore, unlike Walis Labai, an urbane, Western-educated artist working in new media who resides in the capital Taipei, many of Taiwan’s indigenous artists are self-taught and live in the more remote regions of eastern Taiwan divorced from Taiwan’s contemporary arts community centred in Taipei.
In Taiwan, the visual representation of contemporary indigenous culture is a relatively recent phenomenon discernable in public museums only in the mid-1990s. After the lifting of martial law in 1987 and the rise of democratisation, the search for a Taiwanese identity, as distinct from Chinese, intensified as questions concerning who are the real Taiwanese? and what is Taiwan’s real culture? became central to political and cultural discourse. It is within this nationalist paradigm that the collective identity of Taiwan’s distinct indigenous groups was officially acknowledged,8 and during this period several new museums were established with a focus on the rediscovery and revitalisation of Taiwan’s indigenous cultures. Among these museums is the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines that opened in 1994 as a privately-run cultural history museum. Symbolically, this museum is situated diagonally opposite the National Palace Museum in Taipei that proudly showcases Taiwan’s Chinese cultural treasures. In 2001 the National Museum of Prehistory opened in the south-eastern city of Taitung; this impressive purpose-built museum focuses on the archaeological and anthropological histories of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. As Vickers points out, however, there is a political subtext manifest in many of these aboriginal museums:
The very existence of the aborigines, their ethnic, linguistic, and cultural similarity to Polynesian peoples of the Pacific rather than to Chinese, and the links – historic and prehistoric – between them […] all serve to underline Taiwan’s ethno-cultural distinctiveness, and the tenuous nature of China’s historical claim on this island.9
While these historical and ethnographic museological displays of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples and their cultures continues to attract considerable interest in Taiwan and overseas, contemporary art by living indigenous artists has enjoyed significantly less visibility. For example, it was not until 1996 that Taiwan’s most established contemporary art museum, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), featured two works by two contemporary indigenous artists in its first Taipei Biennial, Quest for Identity.10 Three years later in 1999 an exhibition at the TFAM entitled Aboriginal Contemporary Art in Taiwan and Canada brought together works by Taiwan’s indigenous and First Nations artists from Canada, and as Tseng Mei-chen points out this exhibition marked the first time, in a Taiwanese context, the words ‘aboriginal’ and ‘contemporary’ were brought together.11 Significantly, the KMFA remains the only public art museum in Taiwan to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to the research, representation and acquisition of Taiwan contemporary indigenous art. Lu Mei-fen, the author of the first book published on Taiwan contemporary indigenous art,12 and an assistant curator at the National Museum of Prehistory in Taitung, states that people’s knowledge of contemporary aboriginal art in Taiwan is still extremely limited due to the paucity of research, the lack of cultural policy, and because of prevailing cultural stereotypes about indigenous art.13
To gain a more complete view, outside of this exhibition, of contemporary indigenous art in Taiwan, it is necessary to travel to the east coast, to visit regional towns including Hualien and Taitung where one can meet the artists and visit their studios. On the outskirts of Taitung, the Dulan Arts Centre, originally a sugar factory, was established a decade ago and now hosts a lively artistic community where indigenous artists have set up studios, and where visiting international artists are also invited to work. Most local artists here are sculptors, and many use driftwood as their chosen medium which, in this coastal area, is freely available and is valued for its local specificity to this region, as well as its natural, organic qualities. At Dulan, artists’ works range from the allegorical to the abstract – from totemic sculptures that translate the myths and legends of their tribe, to carved wooden furniture deriving inspiration from traditional tribal styles and patterns. Given the limited market for aboriginal art in Taiwan the main commercial avenues for these artists’ works are hotels, tourist resorts and aboriginal cultural parks such as the Bunun Tribe Culture Park on the outskirts of Taitung. Despite a lack of income and of exhibition opportunities, artists including Sakuliu (Paiwan tribe), E-Ming (Puyuma tribe) and Siki Sufin (Amis tribe) who have studios at Dulan, believe that they have a duty to ensure the survival of their cultural traditions and practices and to acculturate the younger generations, including school groups that visit Dulan. One of Taiwan’s more established indigenous artists, Sakuliu, whose mixed media installation is represented in The Great Journey, has been actively engaged on a community level in the preservation of his tribe’s culture. Reflecting on the impact of Taiwan’s history of colonisation and modernisation, Sakuliu raises the question ‘what is real tradition’ when the sense of collective identity and traditional cultural practices within his tribe has been irrevocably altered?14
The preservation and perpetuation of indigenous cultural traditions and the protection of the natural environment are of central importance to many of the indigenous artists interviewed as part of my research. Fei-yu (Flying Fish), who belongs to the Yami tribe from Orchid Island and who lives and works near Dulan with his English-speaking wife, is one of Taiwan’s more politically engaged and enterprising indigenous artists. An anti-nuclear and indigenous rights activist, Fei-yu shares these artists’ anxieties about the effects of modernisation and the loss of his tribe’s cultural identity and traditions. He emphasises, however, that the struggle to survive is ultimately the greatest concern for most indigenous peoples because, as the government acknowledges, they are disenfranchised as a result of the loss of land as well as the lack of economic support, and of health and educational benefits.15 These inequities and sense of loss were compounded by Typhoon Morakot that struck Taiwan in August 2009 only months prior to my visit there. The devastation wrought upon aboriginal families and their villages in this region was clearly evident. As a way of making ends meet, Fei-yu, who is a painter, sculptor and ceramicist, sought to sell to museums and collectors large clay pots he had made with his father. Even though these works replicated the traditional forms and designs of the Yami tribe’s earthenware which is nationally acclaimed, they were rejected on the basis they lacked cultural authenticity. That is, his works were judged neither as art nor as artefact. Chen Guei-ying, who has worked in a number of art galleries and auction houses in Taipei and who has tried to promote indigenous art, believes indigenous artists in Taiwan need to ‘adjust their thinking’ if they are to be accepted in the art mainstream. Further, they need to learn how to use contemporary new materials because, as she remarks, ‘they shouldn’t use old materials if they want to express new thinking’.16
It appears that popular stereotypes of what indigenous art should look like are one of the main challenges contemporary indigenous artists in Taiwan currently face. Rahic Talif (La Haaize) from the Amis (and more specifically the Makota’ay) tribe is openly critical of the ways in which indigenous art in Taiwan is being ‘colonised’ by the art market and by art museums which are seen to impose their Han chauvinist views which frame aboriginal art either as exotic or frozen in time.17Talif is regarded as one of the earliest innovators of contemporary indigenous art in Taiwan and his works have featured in numerous exhibitions of indigenous art, including the aforementioned Aboriginal Contemporary Art in Taiwan and Canada at the TFAM. He was invited to participate in the KMFA’s exhibition The Great Journey but refused on the grounds that he no longer wishes to be branded as ‘aboriginal’. Talif wants to be accepted into the mainstream ‘through his talent not by his blood’, observes Lu Mei-fen.18 He takes exception to the ways in which Taiwan indigenous artists’ works are categorised and marginalised and purportedly not treated with the same respect accorded to international artists’ works.19 In addition, he observes that although museums and the government’s Council for Indigenous Peoples emphasise the importance of international cultural exchange between Taiwan and other Austronesian countries, local indigenous artists are not granted the same opportunities to travel and present their works in other countries as are given to other visiting artists.
The desire to engage in cultural dialogue was clearly one of the principal goals of this exhibition as was highlighted in the catalogue essays, in the exhibition publicity, and underscored in the conference and artist residency program held in conjunction with the exhibition. According to a number of participating artists, however, these aspirations for cultural exchange were not fully realised. Part of the reason for this was language differences, which the New Zealand-based photographer Greg Semu, who was one of the artists in the exhibition and an artist-in-residence at the KMFA, remarked upon as being one of the greatest challenges he had to overcome.20 During his residency Semu effectively transcended some of these linguistic issues through his work in which he engaged and collaborated with local indigenous communities in a series of intriguing photographic re-enactments, and also through his research on traditional tattooing practices. To this viewer, the absence of cultural dialogue was most visible in the exhibition structure itself given that works by artists from the Pacific were displayed in a separate albeit adjoining room to that which displayed the work of the local Taiwan artists. Initially they appeared to be two distinct exhibitions. According to the exhibition organisers this had resulted from logistical issues, but it was unfortunate as it disrupted a conversation that might otherwise have emerged from a more challenging juxtaposition of artists’ works.
In essence The Great Journey: In Pursuit of the Ancestral Realm has raised more questions than it has answered. By bringing together this impressive and diverse range of works from such disparate cultures and traditions this exhibition makes us re-consider our sense of place in the world. This exhibition signifies an important beginning in this exchange of ideas across and between this myriad of cultures and locations. It is hoped this conversation will continue.
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1. This series of three exhibitions focusing on Austronesia were held annually from 2007-2009. They include Across Oceans and Times: Art in the Contemporary Pacific (2007), Le Folauga- the past coming forward: Contemporary Pacific Art from Aotearoa New Zealand (2008), and Art in the Contemporary Pacific - The Great Journey: In Pursuit of the Ancestral Realm (2009). This exhibition series was first initiated by the former KMFA Director, Lee Jun-hsien, and is funded on a three-year basis by the Kaohsiung City government.
2. Currently these fourteen indigenous tribes that have been officially recognised include: Amis, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, Tsou, Rukai, Puyuma, Saisiyat, Yami, Tao, Kavalan,Truku, Sakizaya, Sediq.
3. Peter Bellwood at the Australian National University (ANU) is one of a number of scholars who has written about Taiwan’s Austronesian heritage. See P. Bellwood, ‘Tracing Ancestral Connections Across the Pacific’, Across Oceans and Time: Art in the Contemporary Pacific, Kaohsiung Museum of Art, Kaohsiung, 2007, pp. 38-40; P. Bellwood, ‘Taiwan and the Prehistory of the Austronesians-speaking Peoples’, Review of Archaeology, 1998, No. 18, pp. 39–48; Robert Blust, ‘The Austronesian Homeland: A Linguistic Perspective’, American Perspectives, no. 26, 1985, pp. 45-67.
4. John Terrell, ‘Introduction: “Austronesia” and the Great Austronesian migration’, World Archaeology, Vol. 36, No. 4, 2004, pp. 586-590; Stephen Oppenheimer, ‘The Express Train from Taiwan to Polynesia: On the Congruence of Proxy Lines of Evidence’, World Archaeology, Vol. 36, no. 4, 2004, pp. 591-600.
5. Mei-chen Tseng, ‘Art in the Contemporary Pacific – The Great Journey: In Pursuit of the Ancestral Realm’, exhibition pamphlet, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2009.
6. A series of works by Walis Labai featured in an exhibition entitled Penumbra: Contemporary Art from Taiwan that was curated by this author and presented at the Samstag Museum of Art, 29 February to 4 April, 2008 (see review by Nicholas Jose in Art Monthly Australia #209, May 2008).
7. Yin-wei Chen, ‘(The 1996 Biennial) The Social Aspects and Realistic Strategies of Taiwan Contemporary Culture’, Artist, No. 43, Sept. 1996, pp. 351-353 (in Chinese).
8. On 1 December 1996, the Council of Indigenous Peoples was officially established by the Executive Yuan. For further information on the rise of the aboriginal rights movement and the politics of indigenous recognition in Taiwan see Kun-hui, Ku. ‘Rights to Recognition: Minority/Indigenous Politics in the Emerging Taiwanese Nationalism’, Social Analysis, vol. 49, Issue 2, Summer 2005, pp.99-121.
9. Edward Vickers, ‘Re-writing Museums in Taiwan’ in Fang-long Shih, Stuart Thompson and Paul-Francois Tremlett (eds), Re-writing Culture in Taiwan, Routledge, Oxon, 2009, p. 92.
10. The artists who featured in Quest for Identity were sculptors Er Ge from the Paiwan tribe and Ha Ku from the Puyuma tribe. In 1986 the TFAM presented an exhibition of aboriginal artefacts. Quest for Identity was the first exhibition in Taiwan that incorporated indigenous contemporary art at a major public art museum. There were, however, other exhibitions held during the 1990s. These included: a solo exhibition of work by Ha Ku in 1991 in the gallery associated with the art magazine Lion Art Monthly (Hsiung Shi Meishu); and in 1996 Anli Genu held a solo exhibition at the TFAM, which was purportedly the first solo exhibition of an indigenous contemporary artist presented at a major public art museum. See Mei-chen Tseng, ‘The Great Journey: In Pursuit of the Ancestral Realm’, Art in the Contemporary Pacific, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 2010, p 22.
11. See Tseng, 2010: p. 22.
12. This book by Mei-fen, Lu is published in Chinese. The English title of the book is Before Dawn: The Development of Contemporary Indigenous Art in Taiwan (天還未亮：台灣當代原住民藝術發展), Artist, Taipei, 2007.
13. Mei-fen Lu, Interview with the Author, Taitung, November 2009. The Council for Indigenous Peoples, Executive Yuan allocated funding in 2009 to the National Museum of Prehistory to research local indigenous cultural issues and policy and to undertake an international comparative study on indigenous cultural policy.
14. Sakuliu, Interview with the Author, Kaohsiung, November 2009.
15. Fei-yu, Interview with the Author, Taitung, November 2009. For information on the government’s official policies on indigenous affairs see Council for Indigenous Peoples www.apc.gov.tw/main/docDetail/detail_official.jsp?cateID=A000190&linkParent=99&linkSelf=135&linkRoot=99 cited 29 June, 2009.
16. Guei-ying Chen, Interview with the Author, Taitung, November 2009.
17. Rahic, Talif, Interview with the Author, Kaohsiung, November 2009.
18. Mei-fen Lu, Interview with the Author, Taitung, November 2009.
19. This comment was made partly in reference to the fact that a number of the Pacific Islander artists were given their own separate spaces when Talif and other local artists in this exhibition were purportedly not allowed to have their own space when they requested it. Rahic Talif, Interview with the Author, Kaohsiung, November 2009.
20. Greg Semu, Interview with the Author, Kaohsiung, November 2009. Sakuliu was an artist-resident at the same time at the KMFA and he also commented on this language issue.
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This research wouldn’t have been possible without the support and generosity of the following: artists Sakuliu, E-Ming, Siki Sufin and Shan Shan, Fei-yu and his wife, A-Shui, and Rahic Talif; Yang Chien-hsien, Lu Mei-fen and Fang Chun-wei from the National Museum of Prehistory; and Chen Gui-ying. Also thanks to Tseng Mei-chen, Iris Hsieh and Director Hsieh Pei-ni from the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts.
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The Wade-Giles system of romanisation utilised in Taiwan has been adopted for the transcription of personal and place names in Chinese.
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This article has undergone a process of refereeing. See p. 3 for referee details. |
