A. EXHIBITION

Art-Archaeology: Gender, Myth and Techno Crossing

Digging through tens of millions of years and nodes lying in between past and future, “Women／ 我們: from Prehistory to HERstory” retrospects and reinterprets the definition of “women” with the theme of “Art-archaeology: Gender, Myth and Techno Crossing.” In this light, community and cross domains of ecology and media technology and sculptural installations will be showcased in an attempt to escape from the dichotomous limitation of patriarchal ideology. This exhibition intends to focus on the intertwined discourses of gender/ ethnicity, mythology/history, and ecology/technology, and revolves around three relevant sub-themes: “Indigeneity and Cross-Domain Ecology,” “Gender and Representations of Arts,” and “Myth and Technology Crossing.” Speculating on the possible future based on feminine logics, a “HERstory” will be written by synthesizing emerging technology media and archaeological history; thus, it highlights the life derived from women, goddesses, as well as Mother Earth and their creation energy. Faced with the Covid-19 pandemic and post pandemic era in 2022, Taiwan Women’s Art Association and the National Museum of Prehistory co-organize this spectacular exhibition centering around women, which not only assembles the representative artworks of 18 contemporary women artists, but also celebrates the bond of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary creativity. This project is composed of several events including an art exhibition, a women’s film festival, a gender-theme book fair and modern dance. On a challenging path toward recovery, it is hoped to jointly build a rainbow bridge to cross historical and cultural gaps through women’s artistic power.

• Indigeneity and Cross-Domain Ecology

Indiginous women artists use art as a medium to translate and interpret their ancient philosophies as well as trajectories of life in nature. Yuma Taru and Kahe Community connect the Atayal tribe of Taiwan with the Austronesian culture of Flores, Indonesia, in hopes of reconstructing the lost cross-cultural memory in the past. Eleng Luluan applies symbols such as the headdresses of Ruka, umbilical cord and red cotton thread to weave patterns that show legacy and love between an indiginous mother and daughter. In response to the location of the soul, artist Ruby Swana proposes the concept of “Falucu” (meaning heart in Amis). Her work is inspired by a spirit journey with auras wandering in nature, and her bold creations look as if she encounters the Muses under blossom trees.Through collecting activities and collective creations with sea tribe women running in the family, Hana Keliw from the Atolan tribe conveys how to sustain the ecological environment while maintaining the Masi’ac (intertidal zone) lifestyle which emphasizes mutual support and sharing. Milay Mavaliw recreates the cultural values and spiritual characteristics of different communities from mountain to sea through stories, documents, and videos about collecting totems of 16 tribes. Artist Margaret Shiu’s large-scale ceramic installation Watch Clouds voices her concern and care for the power struggle, gender politics and natural environment domestically and globally.

Participating Artists: Yuma Taru, Eleng Luluan, Ruby Swana, Hana Keliw, Milay Mavaliw and Margaret Shiu

• Gender and Representations of History

Centered on the awareness and reappearance of subjectivity regarding gender, ethnicity and history, this theme conveys the dynamic of women’s spirit on the axis of life and creations about artificial intelligence. Mali Wu combines community- based creation and workshops to gaze at the common situation of women’s lives, developing a unique personal journey with spirits as a medium. Through weaving, Aluaiy Kaumakan compares the bilateral descent society of Paiwanese tribe people to concentric circles, emphasizing the importance of interconnection and the synthesis of innovation and tradition. Juin Shieh’s visualized memory folds intervene in the public sphere echoing with the architecture structure of National Museum of Prehistory; therefore, Helene Cixous’s concept of “L’ecriture Feminine” can cling to the edge from corners. I-Chun Chen attempts to collage and reconstruct the blurred memories and historical traces of a grandma’s life in the Japanese era through technology images. Yu-Chuan Tseng’s digital portraits aim at reconstructing the past/present, real/ virtual images. Through reading and reconstructing literary works, she uses Eve Adam’s dialogue to consider the gender constraints of social value systems and the misunderstanding of information. By means of field interviews and photographic fieldwork in the community of Taitung, Chang Mat-ling records social changes, family memories and personal stories with the intention of reversing the public’s artistic perceptions and culturalhistorical interpretations.

Participating Artists: Mali Wu, Aluaiy Kaumakan, Juin Shieh, I-Chun Chen, Yu-Chuan Tseng and May- Ling Chang

• Myth and Technology Crossing

Through constant deconstruction, reconstruction and reproduction of myths and technology under the patriarchal mechanism, the theme is centered on virtuality/reality and illustrates another possibility for the development of individuals, groups and even civilizations in the perspective of women’s art. Pey-Chwen Lin appropriates Da Vinci’s masterpiece by using technology to create a perfect human being, referring to her work Eve Clone as a product because of man’s desire to challenge the Creator. French-based artist Chu-Yin Chen’s digital body-interactive installation intends to carry out organic connection and natural reproduction images through human senses. This work progresses from the left-brained type “I think, therefore I am” to the right-brained type “I draw, therefore I am” as a prophecy and practice. Using Alzheimer’s-linked mutation in neurons as inspirations, Cynthia Lin reveals the intricate contradictions and echoes connections between the individual and the world, the body and the mind. Hsun-Wei Hsu applies aluminum foil, an “industrial membrane,” as her medium to wrap, reproduce, and generate tensions, as if it were an alternative maternal womb. She attempts to provoke the impermanent anxiety and desperate desire of life in post-industrial society. Xiao-Hua Dou’s Succubus Forest, the inner dynamics and vision of the female subject are used to initiate a mythological imagination and artistic performance through visual practice. Jun T. Lai’s outdoor largescale sculpture attempts to retrace the freedom and spontaneity of the beautiful deer herd on Ilha Formosa Island according to Portuguese legend.

Participating Artists: Pey-Chwen Lin, Chu-Yin Chen, Cynthia Lin, Hsun-Wei Hsu, Xiao-Hua Dou, Jun T. Lai

B. WOMEN’S FILM FESTIVAL

Image & the Cross-domains Synthesis of Gender, Technology and Ethics

Through the narration and observation of gender images, the film festival focuses on contemporary Taiwanese women’s gender-aware creations in the past decade, including four sub-topics: female mythology genealogy, technological eco-archaeology, female indigenous/ethnic, as well as the cross domains of female art, literature, and images. In the unique perspectives of outstanding female filmmakers from different countries, the festival is centered on the creation and exploration of gender- specific video aesthetics in their works, interweaving the intersection of video and gender, technology, ethnicity and art. The film festival will be held from the end of July to the beginning of August, and eight representative films by eight selected directors will be screened. The co-organizers include Taiwan Women’s Film Association and Joint Entertainment.

Co-curator of the Film Festival: Ting-Ging Yu

Genealogy of Gender Myth
《我們這樣拍電影》導演蕭菊貞／2015／紀錄
《第六十九信》導演林欣怡／2016／紀錄

Techno-archaeology of Ecology
《山豬溫泉》導演郭珍弟／2014／紀錄
《科技與性別:數學女鬥士徐道寧》導演王慰慈／2016／紀錄

Female Indigenous People and Ethic Issues
《插天山之歌》導演黃玉珊／ 2007 ／劇情／西拉雅
《部落地圖》導演莎韻．西孟／ 2020 ／紀錄／泰雅

Cross Domain of Women’s Art, Literature and Image
《暗暝e月光―臺灣舞蹈的先驅蔡瑞月》導演陳麗貴／2004／紀錄
《波濤最深處》導演黃明川／2020／紀錄

Participating Directors: Chu-chen Hsiao, Hsin-I Lin, Chen-Ti Kuo, Weitsy Wang, Yu-Shan Huang, Sayun Simung, Lih-Kuei Chen and Ming-chuan Huang

C. FEMALE BOOK FAIR

Feminine Writing and Representations of Arts

The book fair is divided into three sub-topics: “Gender Theory & Women’s Studies,” “Women’s Books/Expressions Series,” and “Women’s Culture/ Creation and Criticism,” which include books on theory, literature, and video art works. The “Gender Theory & Women’s Studies” showcases important theories by domestic and foreign scholars; the “Women’s Books/Expressions Series” presents a series of works published by Fembooks; and the “Women’s Culture/Creation and Criticism” includes a collection of about 60 books by domestic and foreign writers and artists participating in the exhibition, including critiques (see the list of books in the Appendix). In order to expand the capacity of the event, it is proposed to invite Fembooks, the Taiwan Women’s Center, and Taiwan Women’s Film Association to cooperate in promoting this issue.

D. THE CONFLUENCE OF WOMEN’S ART

HERstory

Assemble 8 important female artists from WAA and their representative works to participate in the “WE/WOMEN From Prehistory to HERstory” art exhibition, converging across time and space to form.

Participating Artists: Rona Wang, Chie-Fen Wu, Chiung- Hua Wu, Wen-Li Chou, Hsiang-Ling Chen, Cecilia Feng, Shuhui Tsai, Hui-Ying Tsai

CONCLUSION

Are women a priority or only an attachment? Is it a social expectation or an innate constraint? The French feminist Simone de Beauvoir proposed to the social construction of woman as the second sex. Women’s art has also been underappreciated in historical writing. It is no wonder why the renowned American art historian Linda Nochlin asked “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” More than 20 years ago, the Journey of the Spirit: Taiwanese Women Artists and Contemporary Representations exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan and the Mind and Spirit: Women’s Art in Taiwan exhibition organized for the first time by the Women’s Art Association finally emerged because of calls to action. A female majority is the norm regarding museum visitors today, however, male artists still make up the majority of the center of exhibition and collection. If fairness, diversity, tolerance and sustainability are universal values, this “love and hopes” art festival initiated by Taiwan Women’s Art Association and co-organized by National Museum of Prehistory, Taitung Art Museum National, Taitung Living Art Center and other venues, should best represent women artists’ abundant creativity energy.

尤瑪·達陸、王鄭贛蓉、米類‧瑪法琉、吳瑪悧、吳志芬、吳瓊華、周文麗、林月霞、林珮淳、武玉玲、哈拿·葛琉、峨冷·魯魯安、徐洵蔚、張美陵、逗小花、陳依純、陳珠櫻、陳香伶、曾鈺涓、馮孝英、蔡淑惠、蔡慧盈、魯碧·司瓦那、蕭麗虹、賴純純、謝鴻均

簡瑛瑛、賴瑛瑛、游婷敬｜影展偕同策展人

The development of women’s art in Taiwan, on the whole, has gradually developed into a new stage under the transformation of art and self-consciousness, after the gradual awakening of the female autonomy in the 1980’s, and there were no shortage of collective exhibitions of female consciousness and sisterhood among the artworks. However, it was not until after the mid-1990s that women’s art exhibitions in Taiwan began to be curated in a more topical manner. After two years of radical changes caused by the global attack of the Covid-19 virus, the Taitung Museum of Fine Arts was used as the main base to curate a special exhibition of Taiwan’s women’s art that disturbs the stereotypical images of women and presenting topics that reveal their true faces, allowing contemporary women’s art to emerge in a place where the viewer could discuss, and at the same time, expanding via the interactive inspiration from linking in the art history women’s consciousness, movements, and the unnoticed and unwritten female art practice in the Eastern Taiwan, allowing the flowing artistic energy to be created from the still marginal and re-marginal vocal positions.

Living at the borders means that one constantly treads the fine line between positioning and de- positioning. The fragile nature of the intervals in which one thrives requires that, as a mediator-creator, one always travels transculturally while engaging in the local “habitus” (collective practices that link habit with inhabitance) of one’s immediate concern. Always solicited as one can only effect a move by acknowledging, without occupying the center, on ――TrinhT.Minh-ha, Elsewhere, Within Here, 2011, p.54

Trinh T. Minh-ha, a Vietnamese-born female scholar of Gender & Women’s Studies living in the United States, also a film director, visual artist, writer, composer, and cultural commentator, has long been concerned with the flowing phenomenon of cultural hybridity and identity displacement, and offered the above observations on a contemporary world where we are all disasporas of land and culture.

In the millennium when the Women’s Art Association was established on the west coast of Taiwan, it was also the beginning when many native artists on the east coast left the city and returned to their tribes, and urban-born art and cultural workers migrate to the east coast during the pivotal points in their lives. The long East Coast of Taiwan has accepted many of these creators who have returned and migrated one after another, and the disturbance, exchange and symbiosis over a 20-years span have gradually nurtured a uniquely vibrant and wild power, especially for female or transgender creators, who are the most important catalysts for the development of contemporary art in eastern Taiwan. Compared to the mainstream metropolitan art circle, women and transgender creators on the East Coast are living a more relaxed and abundant life of creativity. When artist Dou Xiao-Hua who migrated to Dulan, Taitung in 2000 founded “The House of the Rising Sun – The Other Woman Gallery”, she proposed the following:

The House of the Rising Sun –
the sun symbolizes the light of motherhood and femininity in the Amis tribal legends.

The “House of the Rising Sun” is located in the Dulan tribe on the east coast,
a place where the Amis have settled.

The Other Woman is a symbol of the flame of creation, the awakened feminine consciousness,
from the intuition of the mind.

Please, read women with a different set of eyes!

This passage, which illustrates the meaning of the name of the Other Woman Gallery, pointed out that the artists, as resident participants, follow the boundaries where their home culture and the local cultural environment intersect. Unlike the Han culture we are accustomed to, in the culture of the Amis, the most dominant local group in the Hualien- Taitung region, the woman/mother is the sun, the light and origin of life, while the man/father is the moon. The Amis among the Taiwanese aboriginals are generally considered to be a “matrilineal society”, according to the classification of early anthropologists. In fact, the term “matrilineal”, which was coined from the patriarchal Han Chinese culture, does not adequately describe the core concept of gender society among the Amis.

Recently, Taiwanese anthropologist Su-Mei Lo, through her study of the millet cycle rituals of the Dulan Amis, observed that in the past, in Amis society, “women were given the role of ‘connecting with the land’ in agricultural rituals, and were responsible for the abundance of plant growth, while men were ‘excluded’ from agricultural activities, specializing in hunting and fishing, and the spatial ‘exclusion’ (mountain and sea) of these two types of activities possesses the meaning of encompassing and containing. In addition to the fixed spatial connection with the land compared to Amis women, Amis men also have the temporal characteristics of mobility and rotation cycle. In Amis society, women are responsible for the continuation of the relationship between family members and the land, while men are responsible for ancestral rituals, and the ‘cyclical flow’ drives the gender division of labor in the production and reproduction of the family.” Therefore, in the Amis culture, the relationship and social meaning of gender is not based on the concept of opposition and overriding, but on the concept of “division of labor” and “complementarity”. “The concepts of ‘gender distinction’ and ‘co-construction of the annual cycle’ are prevalent in every Amis society.

On this basis, the concept of human life, the concept of family, and the concept of ancestry are constructed in the society, which also illustrates the Amis cosmology.” In this way, we can begin to comprehend why the women of the Amis world in the East Coast of Taiwan are able to show their calm, elegant, and spontaneous aura despite their situation, as well as their firm and generous tolerance and acceptance of foreign cultures and migrants like the mother of the ocean and the earth, like a strong and warm womb and flowing amniotic fluid. For the East Coast of Taiwan to be where contemporary diverse culture intersect, streams, and nurture the cultural vitality that is incomparably fierce and indefinable, the Amis culture is undoubtedly the most crucial fertile ground, and the most needed healing force for a world that is suffering from natural and artificial disasters and the chaos and disruption after its deconstruction of the established order. Therefore, at this very moment, we gather the power of women’s art from Taiwan and the world on the east coast of Taiwan, and observe the respective roles played by contemporary female artists from their lives to their creations from a variety of perspectives; we try to extract from the curatorial sample of exhibitors the extension of contemporary context and cross-border dialogues in contemporary female creation in Taiwan, and we also take this exhibition and symposium as a preliminary opportunity to comb through the foundation of the formation and development of local women’s art. Furthermore, we provide a medium for the audience to think about themselves, about others, and about social interrelationship, and further extend the women’s yeast-like role to the equal connection and sharing between people, between spaces, and between regions, and the process of continuously generating new energy and new partners.

The theme of “Continuity-Flow-Convergence” has multiple semantic meanings, and the concept of the exhibition, which is formed by a string of verbs, is on the one hand metaphorically implies the brewing of new things out of existing things, and at the same time has the connotation of interconnection, extension, evolution and growth.

伊布 Ebu Istanda（孫瑞玉，布農族）、王怡美、汪曉青、林介文、林戎依、何佳真、洪麗芬、Maigo Sugano、張恩滿、Tiffany Singh、張瑞頻、張惠蘭、張秀琴、黃蘭雅、曾琬婷、饒愛琴

張惠蘭、李韻儀

We sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in our blood. ――Teresia Teaiwa

Islands float alone in the sea

Each one of them is the synthesis of many beautiful life stories

Connected by the blood of the ocean,

islands mutually support each other

Every woman is like an island

We are singing our Island Songs together

The curated Women’s Island Songs exhibition features women’s narratives and observations, structured by the displays of their bodies and everyday life images. It is an attempt to present the history of their life through different aspects of their artworks. Every woman’s story is an island; all the islands are connected to form women’s islands. When we reconstruct an island’s identity through the context of its life history, a viewpoint based on the feminine body and her living situation is provided to create such an island of life to be presented on the fluid historic stage. Whether it is the display among genders, shifting powers in various fields, or the power that constructs and maintains gender inequality in order to rationalize the existing institutional structure in the realms of family, society, and nation, this state of inequality is often overlapped and intertwined with important factors related to social class, ethnicity, age group, and cultural background, which collectively co-create a holistic entity visible in the stories written by women about themselves for thousands of years.

The world has been shaped by the covid 19 pandemic since 2019, facing drastic structural changes in terms of global population, economy, travel, and human rights issues. Devastation and reckless natural destruction caused by human has brought forth repercussion, which is a painful price to pay. Humans can no longer move around freely as all of us must be locked down at home while constantly confronting the next wave of unknown outbreaks. This situation is extremely challenging for the role of women, for their role is to take care of the family, career, partner, and everyday life in the chaotic world. Collectively, as women’s islands, we share how we face our conditions and situations under drastic changes in the environment, and how we tell stories about women’s islands, whether through resemblance in role-play or self-identity. As our islands connect, we support each other’s life through the presentation of our artworks, a song of our women’s islands.

王玉琴、宋少奐、吳垂娟、吳瓊媛 Camille（嘎米-法文名）、余紫詠、林秋芳、唐幼玲、徐嘒壎、張彩杏、張于敏、鍾穗蘭

生活工坊展區：明蓮花 Marina Burana ✕ 米麻岸工作室、法芙魯安．恩萊勇 Vavulengan Lanyun （鄧雪貞）✕ 島人藝術空間 Islander Art Force、簡吟如 ✕ 卡塔文化工作室

Shulun Wu, Yuxin Wang

王富娘 東管處海洋藝廊、王⼼佑 力卡珈琲、王昱心 成功老屋x眺港咖啡、李瑋 月光海咖啡屋、吳瓊華 伊塔原旅、吳絲絨 Kituru、吳淑倫 拉勞蘭小米工坊 & 鐵花村音樂聚落•慢市集、林麗華 卡塔文化工作室、周貞君 路得行旅 台東館、侯曉雯 芙瀨實驗廚房、陳佩君 東管處海洋藝廊、陳靜智 月光海咖啡屋、陳秋瑾 走走池上、張裴舫 東管處海洋藝廊、莊彩琴 路得行旅 台東館、許家蓁 東管處海洋藝廊、黃楷馨 東管處海洋藝廊、曾玉冰 趣淘漫旅–台東、蔡慧盈 東管處海洋藝廊、羅祤絹 好的擺手創藝術小店

Shulun Wu, Yuxin Wang