Swaying Borders 2023
The exhibition originates from the Hualien City Office project "Art Fun 762 mm – Hualien Port and Streets in the Past and Present", which encompasses geographical areas including the vanished Bird Stepping Stone fishing village, Hualien Port area, the old port rail line, the old Hualien train station, and the surrounding Guozaiwei community. By exploring cultural content from both the past and the present, it allows us to experience the layered interplay of different eras reflected in today's space. It seeks to expand a creative relationship and offer the audience an exhibition experience that is tangible, retrospective, and imaginative.
The name, "Swaying Borders," reflects the busyness and disappearance of the Hualien Port Line and the old railway, as well as the coastline from Hualien Port to Nanbin Beach, which has changed over the years before and after the construction of the port. With a wavering, vague and obvious posture, they let the visible and hidden lines be densely overlaid to form an unstable and rich connotation.
The exhibition venue is in the first hall of the Hualien Railway Cultural Park, which is also the site of this project's research, and it is at a pivotal geographic location. In addition to the surrounding railway-related facilities, to the north lies the vanished Port Line, and to the south is the Guozaiwei community, closely interconnected in terms of transportation and daily life.
There are a document display and two commissioned artworks in the exhibition space. The document exhibition includes old photographs, maps, artifacts, books, interviews, fieldwork, and articles. The two artists have independently developed their works based on the Bird Stepping Stone and Guozaiwei areas. Interestingly, within the few decades of human life, both artworks individually convey a perspective of retrospection:
"The sea in front of your home" is a work by artist Hsin Peichin, presented through a three-channel video projection. The artist interviewed several residents of Bird Stepping Stone Fishing Village and fishermen from Hualien Port, shuttling between multiple threads of memory. Through performance filming and charcoal sketching, within the realm of both real and imaginary memories, there emerges a faint image of the sea from several decades ago."
Artist Chen Chun-Yu’s work, " Are you sure it's like this?" explores the scenes preserved in the memories of residents around the old station. Under the drastic changes between the present and the past, the photography is a patchwork of memories, oral narratives, the Internet and artificial intelligence. Through the multiple perspectives of image interpretation, the uncertainty of memories is questioned and more possibilities are triggered.
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Date: 2023.09.16(Sat.) – 10.14(Sat.) 11:00-18:00 (closed on Wednesdays)
Venue: The First Hall, Hualien Railway Cultural Park
Curator: LEE Te-Mao
Artists:
HSIN Pei-Chin / The sea in front of your home
Ohau Chen / Are you sure it's like this?
Historica: Photos | LEE Chen-Huei, YEH Po-Chiang, PAN Chao-Chin
Transtor: LIU Yi-Chun
Graphic Designer: Hung Tzu-Hsuan
Construction: Nordkapp Studio
Directing Unit: Ministry of Culture
Organizer: Hualien City Office
Curatorial Unit: Nordkapp Studio