Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

Curator｜CHEN Hungyi

Post Ecolonialism Project first starts as an eco-action, and gradually evolves into an "action culturelle." The project aims to perform "bricolage," or "repair" the destructed nature by planting trees while re-contemplating on our relationship with nature during the process of "bricolage" as we "return the land to trees." The large number of newly planted endemic trees also reconstructed the landscape destructed by human beings. The project viewed the action of tree-planting as a metaphor, through which we could re-examine the genre of landscape painting. The core spirit of both center on the relationship between the subject and nature. In addition to displaying documentations of the tree-planting action, the exhibition also reviews a certain aspect of Taiwanese landscape (painting), and attempts to represent this genealogy through new artistic creations. The exhibition explores and contemplates on Taiwanese landscape through five sections. For the first section, the curatorial team journeyed to different parts of the Xue Mountain Range, Central Mountain Range, and Ali Mountain Range to filmed three waterfalls and created a scroll-like video work afterwards. The video symbolizes the landscape painting that shows how Taiwanese people have viewed nature during the rule of Qing dynasty. The second section introduces botanic gardens established during the Japanese-ruled period and reproduced picture postcards, through which the section would explore how nature was perceived in a manner of "decontextualization" after modernity was introduced into Taiwan as well as the landscape painting of this period. In the third section, audience could see the landscape paintings of different types by various contemporary Taiwanese painters. The section reveals both the disparities between contemporary landscape paintings and those from the Japanese-ruled Taiwan, and the shift in the relationship between man and nature. On view in the fourth section is a remake of a segment from Hou Hsiao-Hsien's road film, demonstrating the landscape from another perspective and through a different medium. The fifth section displays an installation that embodies the landscape of Taiwanese forest. A video of the Taiwanese endemic plant, Taiwan Photinia, is placed in this landscape installation. This particular Taiwan Photinia has been transplanted in a garden in Normandy, France several decades ago. Through its representation, the section reexamines the problematic of "ecolonialism" in the context of globalization and responds to the cultural thinking of recontextualization in this eco action of "returning the land to trees." Curator Chen Hungyi has been studying and planting trees at various ecological hotspot communities in Taiwan. Since 2010, many artists and students have joined him, planting over 95,000 endemic trees in Taiwan in areas such as Wutai in Pingtung, Jiaxian in Kaohsiung, Gukeng and Chenglong Wetlands in Yunlin, Budai, Dongshi and Xinmei in Chiayi, and Chigu in Tainan. Many of these areas were devastated by Typhoon Morakot. In order to gather more resources and manpower, Chen extended the tree-planting project into an artistic movement, intending to use art as a method for people to discover possibilities, take part and make a difference, which later came to be known as “Post Ecolonialism Project”. This tree-planting project intervenes in the damaged nature with the participants' bodies by "mending" or "making bricolage" for nature, and connects the action in an imaginative way with the idea, "art as a kind of bricolage". In the meantime, the relationship with nature perceived by the laboring participants in the process of planting trees also responds to the core spirit of the development of landscape painting: the relationship between an individual subject and nature. The rise and development of landscape painting stemmed from the flourishment of social construction and development. As nature gradually disappeared from people's living experience, a psychological need to compensate this lack paved the way for landscape painting and garden art. Garden creation and landscape painting shared certain core concepts and techniques. For example, literati from Suzhou in Ming dynasty employed the concept of "piling up hills and dredging waterways" in building gardens, with which they also created the landscape painting style of Wu (another name for Suzhou). If we see gardens as the text of the project and expand its space, the "tree-planting" action in the damaged nature could be understood as an action of "piling up hills and dredging waterways" in a larger scope. New landscape would be created through this project, representing a nature that we have joined with our actions of labor. In addition to planting trees, Post Ecolonialism Project also revisits different aspects of Taiwanese landscape (painting) with an exhibition, and attempts to represent this genealogy through new artistic creations. The exhibition explores and contemplates on Taiwanese landscape through five sections. Landscape in the Period of Qing Rule The exhibition commences with the landscape of representative waterfalls in Taiwan. CHEN Hungyi, CHEN Cheng-Hung, and YIN Zi-jie have traveled to different parts of the Xue Mountain Range, Central Mountain Range, and Ali Mountain Range to film Guanwu Waterfall, Yunlong Waterfall, and Tianshuei Waterfall. The images of the waterfalls are combined into a scroll-like photograph, which employs the concept of background, middle ground, and foreground in Chinese ink landscape, and symbolizes the relationship between people and nature represented by the Taiwanese landscape painting in the period of Qing rule. Landscape in the Period of Japanese Rule During the time of Japanese rule, the Japanese government aimed to construct Taiwan as a model colony of modernization, realizing their policies of development and rule for colonies. Therefore, they built quite a few botanical and public gardens, ushering in modernization in Taiwan. The curatorial team uses Chiayi Botanical Garden, Taipei Botanical Garden, Taichung Park, and Chiayi Park to illustrate the attitude of "decontextualisation" in modernity when facing nature. SHIU Sheng-Hung's Sanchuan State series begins with the picture postcards from the period of Japanese rule, or "Ehagaki," which used to feature sceneries or drawings and were distributed by the government and individuals. Among them, the official picture postcards have reflected the Japanese government's imagination and fabrication of Taiwanese landscape. With unrealistic colors, SHIU re-draws these images that symbolize the colonizer's gaze, and offers a new way of looking through the process of reviewing the landscape. * Special thanks to Mr. AKIMOTO Yuji (Director of The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts as well as 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa), who participated in the filming and provided valuable suggestions. Contemporary Landscape The third section displays artworks by several representative Taiwanese landscape painters of different types, revealing the disparities between contemporary landscape painting and that from the period of Japanese rule as well as the shifts in the interaction between people and nature. The artists include HUANG Ming-Chang's masterpiece from his Rice Field series, Willow in Spring Dawn, and his Song of the Southern Island that is imbued with light and charm of the southern island. In Mist on Mountain Ridge‧Hualien, YEH Tzu-Chi portrays landscape in the manner of still life, delicately delineating the texture of mountains with a sense of tranquility. Practicing the lifestyle of "farming on sunny days and reading on raining days" and leading a harmonious life with nature, LIN Chuan-Chu paints the Coastal Range on the east coast and creates the effect of ink shadowing with oil paint in the work, Mountain. In the series of Being Here and There, TSAI Yi-Chieh represents the landscape of artificial constructions surviving in urban area. Landscape in Image In HOU Hsiao-Hsien's road film, Goodbye South, Goodbye, LIN Chung, YI Neng-Jing, and KAO Chieh rode two motorcycles and climbed higher and higher on the winding mountain road in Chuchi, Chiayi, sometime side by side and sometimes front and back. It is a classic scene in contemporary Taiwanese cinema. Rada Boukova from Bulgaria did a remake of the scene in Taiwan in 2015, reinterpreting the implicit mountain road landscape of Taiwan's folded topography from a different cultural perspective and unfolding a new image of landscape through a different medium. *Special thanks to Lee Jiun-Shyan, CHEN Yi-Chang, CHEN Tai-Hua, YIN Zi-jie for their performance, and KUO Che-Hsiung, HSIEH I-Hsiang, and HUANG Tian-Shiang for assisting in filming the video. New Landscape in Ecolonialism The final part of the exhibition returns to the forest scenery in Taiwan. Walking into Suspended Bridge created by CHEN Xuan-Cheng /ArchiBlur Lab, audience will see HUNG Tien-Yu's new painting, Tianshuei Waterfall at the beginning, which exudes the charm of ink painting. At the end of the bridge, another painting by HUNG, The Upstream of Chilidan Stream, greets the audience with delicate delineation of the lively and lush primitive mountains in Taiwan. Also at the end of the bridge, French artist Alice Mallet shows her video work of Photinia serratifolia filmed at Bois des Moutiers with an underscore by Norman Yamada. This particular Photinia serratifolia was transplanted in a garden in Normandy, France, and has now returned to Taiwan in the form of a video. Through this section, the exhibition reexamines the problematic of "ecolonialism" in the context of globalization while responding to the cultural thinking of recontextualization in this eco action of "returning the land to trees." Artists｜

CHEN Eric/ArchiBlur Lab、HUANG Ming-Chang、YEH Tzu-Chi、HUNG Tien-Yu、LIN Chuan-Chu、YIN Zi-jie、SHIU Sheng-Hung、TSAI Yi-chieh、CHEN Cheng-Hung、Alice Schÿler Mallet, Norman Yamada, Rada Boukova, Co-curator for French Exhibition｜Alice Schÿler Mallet Co-curator for the Communities Exhibition｜TSAI Ming-Jiun Project Coordinator｜WANG Rocean Visual Design｜DING Si-Cing Videographer｜YIN Zi-jie Space Consultant｜WANG Man-Ping Assistant in French｜Arie Han Cooperated Community｜Jiaxian People's Association、Chiayi County Everlasting Development Association Special Thanks to Robert Mallet, Corinne Mallet, Antoine Mallet, Jean Paul Longuemare, Rain Wu, and Sophia Lin for their assistance with the exhibition in France, and to AKIMOTO Yuji, LI Jiun-Shyan, CHEN Yi-Chang, CHEN Tai-Hua, YIN Zi-jie, KUO Che-Hsiung, HSIEH I-Hsiang, and HUANG Tian-Shiang for assisting in filming the video.