Habitat Homeland, Remember of Homeland

English | Tiếng Việt

In 1700, China’s Han Dynasty invaded Taiwan to exploit sulfur from the Yangmingshan mountain in Taipei, which was used in gunpowder production during the war with Spain and Portugal. With this invasion, the Han people occupied the territory and assimilated the Ketagalan – Taiwanese natives who have long lived around this mountain range. Currently located in the Beitou district of Taipei city is the Ketagalan Cultural Center, a cultural center for Ketagalan history archival. According to (unofficial) statistics, the remaining of this minority only makes up a small community of 20 families, whose language has disappeared.

In 2015, inspired by the sulfur color on the crater of Yangmingshan National Park, Taiwan, I did a series of performances with a group of people dressed in yellow antique clothing, cleaning and gathering mineral dust on the crater in Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei, Taiwan. The sweeping performance takes place as an artificial ritual of collecting crystals as historical dust, an attempt to find more clarity in this historical story.

Thanks to that experiment, as I learned about reasons behind the disappearance of the Ketagalan community, I contemplated the 1,000 years of Chinese domination in Vietnam – my home country. I wanted to answer the questions around a community’s existence: What is the identity of a community and how does a community survive and thrive in the contemporary world?

SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Teams at Bamboo Curtain Studio and Sàn Art
Talking partner: Angela Yawen Hsiao
Assition: Honey Nguyen, Xena Huang, Hanh Xing
Photographer: 黃裕順
Atists: ChienPang Chou (A Pang), Tor Palm, Joanna Chak, Atuko (Akkorin Na)