Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

“Is time the greatest enemy of memory?” The easiest way to be lost in the 21st century is to lose one’s way home.
The greatest sorrow in the last century was “unable to return to one’s home.”
The first drop of tears in this century is unexpectedly shed for “having no home to go back to.” We started These Flowers project in the Autumn of 2015, right before the demolition and relocation of Gong-He Military Village in Donggung, Pingtung. The elders used to say that fallen leaves would eventually return to their roots. We leave because we wish to resist getting old, yet we become rootless leaves before even withering. At first, we worry and search in the endless world to find the person that we can go home with. We get frustrated; we fight regardless of all risks; we find the self, but cannot find the home to return to. We find the person to go home with and track down the path that leads to home, only to find that “home” exists no more. We find each other, only to become drifters in the end. The time that we have not written a letter is how long we have not sent a letter home. Yesterday, I could not help but picking up the pen to write a letter with that very first address I ever memorized; today, the letter was returned. The reason for the failure to deliver is not “address nonexistent” but “addressee unknown.” Without home, we are mere drifters, wandering from one familiar memory to another. Gradually, we realize that “time” is a tender killer. As we chase after time, we have slowly forgotten everything we used to cherish. Those moments that we thought to be carefully preserved in our minds have lost their luster along the course of seasonal cycles. As of now, These Flowers project has reached its fifth year. We hope to portray each other’s memories, using popular music to recreate the lost rhythm and to recall the melodies buried our reminiscence. The artists have teamed up and employed light and shadow as well as interactive and interdisciplinary media to echo the music. As the sense of hearing materializes the bone structure of memory, the sense of sight gives memory a corporeal existence. Each song seems to remind us of things we do not wish to let go. Through these well-intentioned works, it is hoped that every listener can experience others’ stories when listening to the music. Let’s return to the most innocent self to look for ______ that we have tried so hard to hold on to.