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Photo Credit: Ze Wei
You do not need to worry about what we said
2024/10/14
Location：Soulangh Cultural Park
“You do not need to worry about what we said.” This statement is found in a clause of the Sinkang manuscripts, a collection of indigenous Siraya land transaction contracts that emerged after colonizers' arrival. It captures the fragility of their relations.
This exhibition stands as a point in time, much like on an unstable ship in the middle of a vast sea. On this ship, we gaze at the distant island of Taiwan's past. History itself is like this island, elusive, far on the horizon. Our sight of this island, much like the sea that separates us from it, is often unsteady.
As our eyes scan the horizon of years of Taiwan's history, we encounter a sea of accounts predominantly written by colonizers - the Dutch, Chinese, and Japanese. Taiwan's indigenous groups, without written scripts or historical writing traditions, relied on oral traditions to preserve their memory and past. These sounds, however, have largely been lost to time, leaving gaps in our understanding. As if without written characters, there would be no history.
In the early 18th century England, George Psalmanazar, a European author “became” the first Taiwanese indigenous people to write their own history. He fabricated his identity, a Formosan language and history through writing. The possession of a written language and the ability to record or create events, ideas, and knowledge is inherently a form of power.
This exhibition places a particular focus on the Siraya people of Southern Taiwan.Through the lens of the ocean, Chinese characters, the contracts between the colonizer and the colonized, and historical records from the Dutch to the Japanese colonial period, this exhibition re-examines these pasts, explores the essence of written characters, and dismantles the old symbols of power. Through the unwritten histories and unheard sounds, we attempt to find a different ship from which to gaze at this distant island.
We ask, as Caribbean poet Derek Walcott did: "Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory?"
More Information: https://soulangh.tnc.gov.tw/index.php?inter=exhibition&id=107&type=1&kind=current